Our family had just arrived at the lake cottage we had rented for a week of much-anticipated vacation when my wife discovered the unmistakable evidence of spiders and mice in the house. It wasn’t that we had never encountered such things, but that we had expected the cottage to be cleaned and prepared for our stay there. Instead, the counters, cabinets, and beds were littered with the residue of infestation, requiring much cleaning before we settled in. It wasn’t a bad house; it had just been left untended.

We might be guilty of dealing with our hearts the way that cottage was managed. Our “untended places” can become breeding grounds for infestations of wrong thinking, poor attitudes, or sinful behavior—creating problems that require significant attention to correct. The wise path is to recognize our need to tend our hearts by staying in God’s Word and embracing its truths.

In Psalm 119:11, King David recognized the danger of not building our lives on the Scriptures. He said, “Your Word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”

With a focus on the Word, we can build strong spiritual lives that will help us avoid the dangers that inevitably grow in untended places.  — Bill Crowder