Welcome to Douglas Wilson's Blog and May Blog, presented by Canon Press.

I'm guarding your heart. Wednesday, April 27, 2022. Dear Darla, so I think the next issue I would like to cover,

if you would be so kind as to keep on reading, is the importance of guarding your heart.

That is simple enough to say, but actually doing it can be quite the challenge.

You were brought up in a biblical home, and you have a really good relationship with your dad.

I'm happy to note, and so this will be easier for you than it is for many girls.

But you will still have to be intentional about it. You cannot do this on cruise control.

It is not something that happens all by itself. In fact, when left all to itself, the opposite thing happens.

Precisely because you have a commitment to traditional roles for men and women,

you know that the man is expected to take the initiative in a relationship,

and the woman is expected to be the one who responds to him.

She ought not to be the one who asks him out on a date, for example, and she ought not to be the one who proposes.

So far so good. But there are ways that you could quote-unquote initiate something,

even if it is just going on in your head, that can cause no little difficulty for you.

So imagine two lines down the middle of the room, and we have all the guys on the far side of one of the lines,

and all the girls on the far side of the other one. Nobody is in between the two lines,

and we will call that the zone of vulnerability. Getting into the zone of vulnerability means

that if you get into the zone, you can't get out of the zone without getting hurt.

But it is not as though living in the zone is a bad place to be. Every married couple lives there, for example.

That zone is not a prohibited zone, but God has said that He doesn't want us living there unprotected or unsecured.

That is what the covenant does. That is what wedding rings do.

When a couple is shacked up together for a few years, and then they break up, all you have is a divorce without the attorney's fees.

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