Guarding the Gates: Eyes, Ears, Company, Appetite

'Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.' The verb is a watchman's verb — deliberate, repeated, unglamorous attention. And a watchman guards gates, not walls. Here are the four that matter.

The eyes. Job made a covenant with his eyes — a decision made in advance, in daylight, about what he would do in a moment he had not yet encountered. That is the whole principle. Decisions made in the moment are made by the version of you least equipped to make them. Decide now what you will not look at, and build the friction before you need it.

The ears. What you listen to teaches you what to want. This is not only about explicit content. It is about the podcast that leaves you cynical, the conversation that is always about someone's failures, the voice that makes you feel superior. Cynicism enters through the ears more often than through the eyes.

The company. 'He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.' Nobody chooses to be corrupted by a friendship. They choose the friendship and receive the formation. Ask honestly: after time with this person, am I more or less like Christ?

The appetite. Food, money, sex, comfort, attention — every appetite is good, and every appetite lies about how much it needs. Fasting exists in scripture largely as a way of proving to your own body that it is not in charge. A person who has never denied an appetite has no evidence they could.

Guarding gates is not a joyless life. It is the opposite: the person with guarded gates is free to enjoy what is genuinely good without the constant low-grade exhaustion of managing what should never have been let in.