Road map -- Proverb 4:20-23

Prov 4:20-23 "My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight; Keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them And health to all their body. Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life."

When we want to get somewhere, a particular place, we can't just wander around hoping the place just pops up. We can even try very hard looking around, driving very fast, but unless we know where we are going, we're unlikely to find the place we want to go.
First we need a map, this is like "my words". Are you paying any attention to the words? It's all there. The instructions are all there. Have you read it? Are you bothered enough to read the instructions, the manuals, the maps? The Bible?? Sometimes although the instructions are all in the manual, we still can't understand. So we need some help. We need the explanation. But when someone explains to us, have we inclined our ears to listen? Do we have an ear to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying?
Then sometimes we have the instructions, we even have the explanations, but we come up with other reasons. "Look, nobody's driving that way, everyone's going the other way, it must be a wrong way." or, "Come on, this can't be right. This book is just an old book, the situation has changed. I'll just follow the common sense." We quickly forget what we've learned and disregard what we've been shown, just quickly brush everything aside that comes from the Holy Spirit, and said, "oh silly me, I believe that...?" Have we "let them depart from our sight"(v21)? Are we holding on and pressing on to what we believe?
Then lastly, "watch your heart with all diligence." Sometimes our heart can be so deceitful. We can have all sorts of emotions coming through, sometimes we're full on passionate, full on believing, other times we can feel discouraged, disappointed, frustrated, lonely, sad, ... are we going to follow any feelings that pops up on the day or do we watch our heart with all diligence? If you're on the right track, the enemy will make sure to give you all kinds of distractions. Are we going to allow these distractions to take us away or are we going to diligently keeping your focus?