He who guards his soul
"In the paths of the wicked lie thorns and snares, but he who guards his soul stays far from them"(Proverbs 22:5).
I saw an article titled ‘Who found garbage dumplings? … Due to a policeman’s holiday fishing’ in Korea Yahoo Internet News and read it because it seemed interesting. According to the article, a police officer went fishing to Bongam in Paju City, Gyeonggi in South Korea on a holiday. And he heard the residents saying, ‘The water is dirty because of the factory’ and ‘I can't live because of the bad smell’. So he went into an investigation and raided a leading food factory. As it turned out, he saw bun stuffing is made in an impure environment with pipes connected to waste wells. As I read this article, it seems that due to that police instinct, the investigation gave the opportunity to prevent ‘garbage dumplings’. I think it was a great opportunity to protect food so that people can eat healthy food. If so, we are going to ask a question whether we are really investigating by questioning that our souls or hearts are being contaminated with "garbage" or not. As if people try to make a lot of money easily by putting rotten Chinese radish into dumplings, we should ask ourselves whether we really know that our own souls are decaying as Christians who strive for our spiritual growth while living our faith easily. We have to guard our souls more than anything else. We must at least ask ourselves seriously at least once how actively we are devoting ourselves to guard our souls.
In Proverbs 22:5, the Bible says that he who guard his soul stay far from “thorns and snares.” Here, "thorns and snares" refer to adversity and hardships that are the result of the evil deeds of the rebellious, that is, the crooked. There seems to be too many times when we disobey God's commandments like the Israelites in the Old Testament and put ourselves in our own lives with snares and thorns on our sides. The reason is because of the fruit of disobedience, the result of sin. But the guardian of the soul is not the crooked heart but the upright heart (16:17). He who has the upright heart avoids evil. If so, it can be said that the one who guards his soul is upright in heart, and the he who is upright in heart avoids evil. Therefore, he is the one who avoids “thorns and snares.”
How, then, are we to guard our souls as the upright Christians? Dr. Yoon-sun Park suggests seven things in his commentary on the Book of Proverbs:
(1) We must have God in our hearts who protects our souls.
(Prov. 24:12) “If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?”
(2) We must possess the wisdom (faith) that fears God.
(Prov. 8:36) “But whoever fails to find me harms himself ….”
(3) We must keep the commandments of God.
(Prov. 19:16) “He who obeys instructions guards his life, ….”
(4) We must be merciful to others (we must love others).
(Prov. 11:17) “The merciful man does himself good, ….”
(5) We must endure God's admonition (discipline).
(Prov. 15:32) “He who neglects discipline despises himself, But he who listens to reproof acquires understanding.”
(6) We must keep our mouths.
(Prov. 21:23) “He who guards his mouth and his tongue, Guards his soul from troubles.”
(7) We must avoid special sins that harm the soul.
Adultery, extortion, oppression, anger, resentment, partner with a thief (Prov. 22:24-25, 29:24).
Although the ‘garbage dumplings’ were found by the policeman, the "garbage" of our souls is very difficult to find. I don't think we can’t even smell it without seeing one's soul deeply in front of the holy God by reflecting ourselves with His word. We will never be able to manifest the fragrance of Christ if we live our Christian lives misunderstanding that we are upright even tough our hearts are crooked and our souls are getting rotten. The food we eat must be kept well. But above all, we must do our best to guard our souls. I sincerely hope and pray that God protects our souls, and our souls are upright, our souls that avoid evil and “thorns and snares”, the souls that seem beautiful in God’s sight.