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Key Bible Verse: Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23).
Bonus Reading:Luke 6:43-45

We guard our hearts by defending them from thoughts that gnaw at the foundations of faithfulness. You need only turn on the television, read a novel, watch a movie or listen to a coworker to find all the advice you'll ever need to plant and nurture a love-destroying pattern of thought.

One day, for example, you see a passing commercial and think, "I deserve to be happier." You repeat the thought after a fight with your spouse or when your children frustrate you. You imagine changes to your life that might bring you happiness, like finding a more sensitive lover.

The imaginary fancy gradually trains a man to tolerate unfaithfulness. All that's needed to transform a betraying thought into a betraying deed is the kind of trouble or temptation common to all of us: a period of stress, sudden sexual arousal, a fight with your wife. One day that thought finally nudges you over a line you never expected to cross—even though you'd frequently imagined crossing it.

The law of the harvest applies to thoughts as well as to deeds. If you plant, water and tend a thought that betrays love, then betrayal is the natural harvest you will reap.

—Timothy L. Hall in The Labor of Love

Assess areas of life where you believe the lie that you deserve better than you already have. Ask God to renew your mind—and uproot the bad seeds you have watered.

Two processes ought never to be entered prematurely: embalming and divorce.

—Charles Swindoll (seminary president) Adapted from The Labor of Love (Kregel, 1996).

NOTE: For your convenience, The Labor of Love is available in the ChristianityToday.com Shopping Channel.

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Prayer for the Week

Jesus, you are the great healer and restorer. Bind my family together. If I have suffered because of divorce, I ask you to heal our family from its pain and destruction. Please renew our hope.

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