Scripture passage for today:

Proverbs 4:20-23 - "My son, pay attention to what I say; turn your ear to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to one's whole body. Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

Navigating the journey of immigration can be an uphill battle, filled with challenges that often feel overwhelming. I find myself reflecting on the spiritual aspect of this experience, recognizing that the emotional toll can be just as significant as the practical hurdles.

In this episode, I delve into the importance of spiritually guarding our hearts during this difficult time. I draw inspiration from Proverbs 4:20-23, which emphasizes the necessity of paying attention to the words that influence us, turning our ears to what nurtures our spirit - God's word, the Bible, and ultimately guarding our hearts.

As we face the trials of settling in a new country, it’s crucial to remember that our emotional and spiritual well-being is foundational to our success.

In this episode I'll share personal reflections and practical steps on how to be vigilant in this aspect of our lives - things that I'm working to put into practice in my own life and with my own struggles.

This is an invitation to take proactive steps in nurturing your spirit, especially when the pressures of immigration and life in general seem relentless.

Takeaways:

• Guarding your heart is essential for your emotional and spiritual well-being.
• Pay attention to the words you let into your heart, as they shape your thoughts and actions.
• Find encouragement in scripture to help maintain a positive mindset during tough times.
• Engage in prayer to bring your worries to God and seek HIS peace amidst chaos. (Philippians 4:6-8)
• Stay vigilant against negative thoughts that can invade your mind and disrupt your peace.

Well, hello there and welcome to the spiritual care episode of the Celpip Success podcast.

This.

These episodes are meant to help you on a spiritual level.

They will have nothing at all to do with your Celpip success practice.

So if you are hoping and aiming to listen to a Celpip success focused episode, my friend, this is not the one, but you are most welcome to, to listen to it anyway.

The whole idea of this is to help you on a spiritual, encourage you on a spiritual level because I firmly believe that immigrating to Canada, going through this whole ordeal of just trying to get your life set up here in this new country and leaving behind your home country and trying so hard to get your English skills where they need to be and you trying to fit into this new country and get your, let's like your, your professional skills accredited here and just, just to get your feet under you here in this, in this strange country we call Canada.

It's hard.

It is so hard, isn't it?

Oh, anybody who says immigrating is easy is just out to lunch.

And honestly, I think we need all the help we can get.

And for me, finding help from my relationship with Jesus, with God is where it's at.

And so I just want to share with you this week a passage of scripture that has been speaking to me so much.

And I hope that it will speak to you and encourage your heart and encourage your mind and your spirit as you are going through all the things that you are going through these days, as you are working to get yourself ready for the selfip exam and just the process of trying to immigrate.

Like I said, I hope that this encourages you.

So the passage of scripture that I'm going to read for you today is in the book of Proverbs, actually.

And feel free to read along with me if you want.

Go ahead and hit pause if you want to open up your Bible or open up your Bible app and read on along with me.

I'm going to be looking at the Book of Proverbs, chapter 4, verses 20 to 23.

So it's again, nice and short, but I hope that this has a lot of meaning and help for you, just like it's been having a lot of meaning for me over the past, oh, two weeks or so.

So like I said before, It's Proverbs, chapter 4, verses 20 to 23.

And if you don't have a Bible, don't worry about it.

Just, just listen, okay?

You're, you're, you can follow along with me.

So here's what it says.

And before I go any farther, I'm going to be pasting this verse in the show notes of this episode.

So you can also read it there if you like.

All right, let's go on with this.

Proverbs 4, verses 20 to 23.

It says, this, my son, pay attention to what I say.

Turn your ear to to my words.

Do not let them out of your sight.

Keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and health to one's whole body.

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

That's Proverbs 4, 20, 23.

So this week, as I went to my normal regular physiotherapy session, there is something really weird about the physiotherapist's office or their waiting room.

On the top corner of the waiting room, they have this giant TV screen, and for some reason or another, they're always playing a sports channel, but with no volume at all.

All you can see is, you know, whatever game is being played or whatever commentary is going on about those games.

And on Friday, last week, when I went for my session, I had to wait for a couple of minutes for my therapist to be ready for me.

And so I was watching this replay, I guess you could say, of a basketball game.

And my friend, I am not a basketball person.

I like to watch it sometimes, not very often, like when I'm sitting in the physiotherapist's office waiting for my turn.

That would be the only regular time, I guess, that I would watch a basketball game.

It's really not my thing.

For me, it's more of a hockey.

If.

If I get to see a hockey game, especially with my favorite team, which is the Montreal Canadiens, I will gladly sit and watch one of those games, especially if it's in the playoffs, like what it is now for the Stanley Cup.

How about you?

Are you a sports person?

Do you like watching any sport in particular?

For me, yeah.

I'm not that much of a regular, but I do like watching hockey when it's on.

But anyway, that's beside the point.

As I was watching this basketball game, I noticed that they were doing this, like, recap of how one player in particular did such a great job of guarding or playing defensively in his position.

And you're going to hear really quickly that I don't know any technical terms when it comes to basketball, but where they took the.

The recap of this was they showed this player returning with the rest of his team from scoring a Point at the other end of the, of the basketball court and they all, all went running back to their, to their positions on their side of the, of the court.

And of course, as they're running back, the opposite team now has the ball and they're racing down the court to try to score.

And this player that they were focusing on in the commentary like this was kind of like a, maybe like a highlights of the best plays of the game.

And they were just highlighting what this one player did as a way of like saying this guy did a really good job of playing defense.

Because as everybody got back to their, to their spots, this one player took his place at the top of the, the three point line, you know, that oval kind of line that goes around the net.

Well, he took up his spot near the top left hand corner of this, of this spot and that was his place that he had to guard.

And as, as the game went, the ball actually went straight for him.

Well, not the ball, but the, the person on the opposite team that was dribbling.

The ball ran straight towards him actually.

And what was really fascinating, I couldn't hear what was going on.

I was just watching.

But the guy who was playing defense was an expert at it because it was almost like he was stuck to this attacking player.

And the attacking player was running to the left and to the right and he was trying to do, and trying to spin around and trying to do everything that he could to get past this defending player.

And you know what?

He couldn't do it.

Every single move that this guy tried to make, the defending player blocked him or the defending player remained in front of him at all times.

There was literally nothing this guy could do to get away and score.

In fact, the defensive guy played so well that the attacking player actually made a mistake, fumbled the ball.

Well, I don't think you fumble in basketball.

But he lost control of the bar of the ball and the play went in the opposite direction, down, down, down the court so that the defending team became the attacking team and they scored.

All because this one defending player did such a great job of not moving.

And like I said a moment ago, I'm not really a sports person, but I've also watched games where the opposite happens.

You know, where it seems like the defenders can't do a single thing to stop the attacking play from scoring.

Like there's just nothing, everything that they try just fails.

And the attacking team bursts through and always ends up scoring.

And it, I, I, I remember the rare times that I watch a game if my favorite team is playing and they're not doing a good job, I will frequently yell, hey, wake up.

Like, wake up.

Pay attention to what's going on, you guys.

Maybe, maybe you do that as well, where, you know, it just seems like the defending players have fallen asleep and they need our help to.

To wake up.

So you might be wondering, okay, Aaron, what does watching this basketball game and having a good defender and a bad defending examples, what does that have to do with the scripture verse that I finished reading a few moments ago?

And just as a refresher, I'm going to repeat the Last 1, verse 23.

It says, above all else, guard your heart for.

Or everything you do flows from has a lot to do.

Like this basketball game that I saw has a lot to do.

Because it seems like sometimes, at least for me, like this past week, past maybe two weeks, it's like, there are seasons in our life.

There are seasons in my life.

There are seasons in your life where sometimes everything just seems to be going really well.

It feels calm, it feels relaxed.

It feels like everything's just going the way we want it to go.

But then there are seasons where it's just super hard.

There are seasons where it feels like everything is coming against us at once.

And it's just like, I have no idea what to do to make any kind of progress or I don't know what to do to deal with this situation that I'm in.

And for me, that was me the last couple of weeks just feeling like if I.

If I were to draw a picture of how I felt, number one, you probably laugh at it because I'm.

I'm not a good artist, but I would probably draw a stick figure with a giant scribble mark all over my head and maybe over my chest, like, where my heart is.

I felt like, right, really not in everything, but there was just a couple of really important things that were happening with me and my family that were really bothering me that were really stressing me out, and I didn't know what to do to deal with it.

And this week, in my quiet time, in my devotional times, this scripture in Proverbs, the one that I.

That I shared with you was the one that really stuck out to me.

And I've been kind of dwelling on it or thinking carefully about it and rereading it over the past week because it spoke to me.

It was reminding me of some really important things that I want to share with you today.

And again, I'm sharing this with you not as someone who has arrived or has figured it all out.

I'm sharing this with you as someone who is practicing this along with you and who is trying to take what I feel like the Lord is.

Is speaking to me through His Word.

I'm trying to put that into work in my own life.

I'm trying to apply it.

And I just wanted to share with you what some of those ideas were because maybe, maybe it will help you.

Because here's one thing I do know.

I'm not the only one who has been dealing with this.

I shared a very similar message from this message at my workplace in our chapel service yesterday.

And at the end of the service, I had at least a half dozen people come up to me and say and share how difficult a past few weeks they've been having as well, and how important that scripture verse was and how encouraging that scripture verse was to what they are dealing with right now.

And I have a feeling that you are also going through something tough, something difficult that feels like it's kind of going after your heart.

It's kind of breaking through a lot.

Like in that example from the basketball scene that I was telling you about, there are times where it feels like you're able to guard your place.

Like you're able to keep all of those, you know, negative feelings or those discouraging thoughts or those discouraging feelings out.

Like they're.

They hit you, but they don't land and stick with you.

You know, you're able to kind of shove them off and keep going.

But then there are other times, which is.

Was my case pretty much over the past couple of week and a half or so, where it felt like I was sleeping as a defender, you know, and all those shots that were coming my way were getting through and they were hurting.

They were making me lose sleep.

They were making me feel really down and discouraged.

And this verse, above all else, guard your heart really challenged me.

Really kind of was, you know, the Lord kind of not yelling, but speaking, hey, what?

Wake up, wake up.

There's things happening, and we need to work together to keep them from scoring on you.

So here's the first thing that really landed for me from this scripture verse, and that is, number one, I have a part to play in guarding my heart.

And I mean, I've known this.

I've been a follower of Jesus for a long time, for most of my life.

And I've heard messages from this.

From this Proverb of Chapter 4 about guarding your heart.

I've heard messages like this before, and many times I think I do A pretty good job of doing that.

Not perfect, but there are times for sure where I know I kind of drop the ball, where I kind of fall asleep, or maybe I'm less concentrated or I'm less vigilant in taking care of those things.

And I think that was happening to me over the last week and a half because those shots were making it through.

And the thing that landed with me, like I said a moment ago, was, hey, I have a job to be playing with this.

I can't just keep letting those shots come in.

And here's the thing.

Like, it's a little bit different than watching a game, isn't it?

I mean, on a.

In a game like basketball or soccer or hockey, like, you can see the opposite team coming towards you, and you can try your best to mount a defense, right?

And sometimes that happens in our lives where I know.

I can see where, you know, pressure is coming from, or I can see where, you know, I'm.

I'm being hit by these outside pressures, and I can see where the attack, if you will, is coming from.

But then there are times where it just.

You just kind of wake up and realize, oh, my goodness, I'm swamped.

I've been overrun by these things.

And that was me this week.

I kind of just woke up feeling literally like that scribble mark.

I was telling you how I felt, that I looked like a giant scribble mark.

Everything was just landing and hitting me, and I wasn't doing anything to defend myself.

But so the first thing.

I guess I'm rambling here a little bit, and I'm sorry, but the first thing that kind of stuck out to me from this verse was I need to wake up.

I need to realize that my job.

I have a job to play in this, and that is to, above all else, guard my heart.

I have.

That means that I have a part to play.

It doesn't say, let God guard your heart.

It says, you, Aaron, I need to guard my heart.

And of course, God helps me to do that.

But I have a really big part to play in that relationship, right?

So that was the first thing.

The second thing was how important this is.

I was really struck with that, that it says, you know, according to that passage, guarding your heart is the most important thing that you can do.

It says, above all else, guard your heart.

I mean, there's a lot of things that we can guard in our lives.

You know, we can guard our passwords, we can guard our finances, we can guard our relationships with people, but guarding our heart According to this passage, it's the most important thing that we can do.

And we know this is true, don't we?

And I mean, when it comes to our physical heart, the one that's beating inside of us all the time, we know we need to take care of it above all else, right?

Because if we don't, if we don't take care of our heart, like the physical heart, the one that's beating, then we can die, right?

Or we'll get really sick, or we'll have a stroke, right?

Or a heart attack.

I guess a stroke is for your brain.

You can see that I'm not a medical professional either.

But anyway, you know, if we're not taking care of our heart, we will suffer for it, the physical heart.

But the same is also true about our spiritual heart and the Bible.

When it talks about our heart, it's talking about our emotions, it's talking about our thoughts, it's talking about our motivations, it's talking about what's going on inside of us.

And this passage in Proverbs is telling us above all else, guard that, guard what's going on inside.

Don't let you know those negative things.

Come inside and you'll know.

Like you'll know when those things are getting through.

You'll know because you'll be feeling anxious.

You'll know because you'll be feeling so worried that you can't sleep at night.

You'll know because you're going to be so afraid of something or so worried about something that maybe you even stop eating.

Maybe you stop speaking nicely with the people around you.

Like you kind of start snapping.

You're short tempered when normally maybe you are very calm and very easygoing.

You'll know that those things are getting through to you and messing up with your heart.

And so what do you do?

Like when you find yourself already flooded by all of these things, which is what happened to me this, this past week or the past week and a half, I found myself surrounded by all this.

And it was, it was really heavy.

It felt overwhelming.

I didn't know what to do to solve this issue.

And, and the lines just before verse 23, where it says, above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

How do you like, how do you guard your heart?

Is what I'm getting at here.

And I think that the words that come before this verse have a lot to tell us, have a lot to tell me.

At least it spoke to me a lot and I wanted to share them with you.

Verse 20 says my son.

And if you're a lady, I want you to read this as being my child, right?

It's talking to you.

It's not just talking to us guys.

It's talking to you, my child.

Pay attention to what I say.

Pay attention to what I say.

And this is.

Imagine this is God talking to you.

Pay attention to what I say.

Turn your ear to my words.

That's the first thing that lands for me.

If I wake up and realize that I am surrounded by all of this trouble in my heart.

Like, I've not been guarding my heart.

And I wake up with.

Literally wake up in the middle of the night, so nervous and so scared, not knowing what to do.

One of the things that I've noticed, and probably you have, too, those feelings of worry and concern and anxiety all have words attached to them, don't they?

At least they do for me.

Like, if I listen carefully to what's in my thoughts with those fears, there's always words around what I'm worried about.

There's always words around the fear that I'm struggling with inside.

And so I think that there's really important truth here for me, for you.

And that is to notice what words I'm paying attention to.

If you are finding yourself in that moment of struggle, you know, what words am I listening to?

And by the way, let me put a parenthesis on this.

Putting this into practice on a regular basis is not going to exempt us from being in this situation again.

It's not going to exempt us from having to deal with these worrisome, troublesome experiences.

They're just not.

They're not going to go away.

But I think that they will help us to deal with it in parentheses.

So what I'm getting at here is this.

Pay attention to what I say.

This is what I think God would be saying to you and to me.

Pay attention to what I say.

This is God talking through His Word, not Aaron, not your fear.

But pay attention to what the Lord is saying.

Turn your ear to my words.

I felt such encouragement in reading that this week because I realized I was paying attention to the wrong words words.

And I needed to turn my ear, like to physically take my fingers, hold on to my ear and make sure that I'm paying attention to God's word in this circumstance and filling my heart and my mind with his words and not letting my heart be troubled.

It says, do not let these words out of your sight.

Keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them and health to one's whole body.

Like, paying attention to what God's word says, paying attention to and turning your ear to his words instead of paying attention to and paying, like, complete focus on the fears and the anxieties, I think will go a long way in guarding your heart.

At least it has been for me.

And like I said a moment ago, it's not like going to erase those problems.

It's not going to exempt you from having those problems happening in your life.

But I think that what we dwell on, what we focus on, becomes a lot of who we are.

It becomes a lot of how we live, which is exactly what this verse says.

It says, above all else, guard your heart, because everything that you do flows from your heart, right?

And so if we are focusing on the wrong things, I think that our heart is going to be suffering as a result, and it's going to bleed out into the rest of our lives.

So instead, let's do an audit.

And I'm talking to myself here just as much as I'm sharing this with you.

What are you thinking about?

What do you have going on in the thoughts of your heart and in your mind?

Are they centered on and influenced by God's Word, or are they like on all the fears and all the things that are going wrong, all the things that you're worried about happening, your immigration process, all of those things?

Are those the things that are swirling around in your mind, or are you focusing your thoughts on what God's Word says?

And if you're not, this is a gentle reminder to start doing that, to start fixing your thoughts on God's word, turning your ears to it and keeping them inside of you, not letting them escape out, you know, and there's a verse in Second Corinthians 10, verse 5, that says that talks about taking our thoughts captive to Jesus, like, not letting those.

Like, if you notice that there's a thought in there or a worry or an anxiety in there, it's not just to let it run rampantly and freely.

It's to actively go and capture that thought and bring it to Jesus.

And the best way that I know to do that and the best way that I try to practice that, and I don't always get it right, it's by praying.

It's by taking the exact thing that I'm worried about, the exact thing that I'm scared about, and talking to Jesus about it.

He says in Philippians, chapter four, right?

He talks about to be being anxious about nothing, but to pray about everything.

And he promises that when we do that, he will give us his perfect peace that goes beyond understanding.

So my encouragement for you in all of this, and I hope I haven't lost you in this kind of rambling little sharing that I'm trying to do here with you, is one.

If you've been feeling under pressure, if you've been feeling like everything is a giant scribble dark cloud over you, one.

You're not alone.

I've been dealing with that this week.

Two.

Two.

I would encourage you to fix your eyes, fix your ears on what God's word is talking about to you today.

Above all else, guard your heart because everything you do flows from it.

And if you have a lot of those thoughts going around inside that are fearful, that are pulling you off, pulling you away from peace, I want to invite you to gently to remember that we have that job.

We have the ability to take those thoughts captive, to bring them to the Lord in prayer.

And just because you do it once, it might help.

It might completely solve the situation or you might be in such a difficult time that those thoughts keep returning, those fears keep coming back.

That doesn't mean that you did this wrong.

It means that you need to press in and continue to offer those thoughts to the Lord in prayer.

To continue to offer your situation to the Lord in prayer.

It's not just a once and you're done type of a thing.

It's like a day by day practice as you are guarding your heart.

Just like that basketball player.

He doesn't guard his position once in the game and he's done no for the duration of the game.

Whenever they are playing defense, that's his space, that's his spot that he needs to stand guard on.

And we need to do the same thing, not in our own strength.

If you remember from the last episode we talked About Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10, where we are to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

That one, we're doing this in the power of the Lord as well.

I mean the Lord is giving us the instruction to do it, to guard our hearts and it's perfectly okay.

And we should definitely be saying, lord, I want to respond to your word.

I want to stand and I want to guard my heart.

I don't know how.

That was my prayer a lot this week.

Lord, please show me how to put this scripture verse to work in my life.

Because I'm not exactly sure how.

This feels really messy.

This feels really out of control for me.

But I want to obey.

I want to put your word to work in my life.

I want to be guarding my heart and I want you to help me, Lord.

And so that's what I wanted to offer you today.

And maybe why don't we take a moment and pray together if you'd like to join me.

Lord, I'm in the middle of this huge problem.

It's so overwhelming.

My immigration process, my English proficiency exam.

I can't even speak it right.

I feel like my English sometimes just fails me.

I feel like I don't know how to make it in this life, Lord.

I feel stuck.

I miss home.

I miss my friends, my family back home.

Sometimes I just feel so overwhelmed.

And those feelings, those thoughts, they get into me so easily.

But I know that I need to guard my heart.

And I know that I need to be listening to your words and not the words of fear and doubt and worry that I so easily allow in.

And I just want to ask you, Lord, that you would help me today.

Help me as I give these problems, as I give these things that are too big for me over to you.

I surrender them to you.

I ask, Lord, that you would fill my friend today that's listening to this, that's going through this, that's having such a hard time with this.

Lord, I ask that you would fill him or her with your strength, with your peace that goes beyond understanding, and that you would show them how to apply this scripture verse in their life today.

I thank you for my friend.

And Lord, I just ask that you would bless them and that you would remind them that you are real and that you are with them today and that you haven't abandoned them, you haven't forsaken them, and that you have a good plan and a good thing for their life.

And that they are not here by accident, that you are working out something important and meaningful in their life.

In Jesus name, amen.