Guard the wellspring

“Issues” here is the old word for outflowings — the streams that issue from a spring. The proverb’s picture is a wellhead in the hills: whatever gets into the water up there arrives, eventually, in every tap downstream. Words, moods, decisions, the tone you take at dinner — all of it runs downhill from the heart.

That explains the priority level: with all diligence. Above all guarding, guard this. We fence off lesser things carefully — bank accounts, calendars, phones — while the wellspring stands open to whatever wanders in: the feed scrolled at midnight, the grievance rehearsed until it ferments, the comparison that poisons a whole week.

Guarding is mostly gate-keeping: choosing what gets in during the day’s unguarded minutes, and letting God do His daily cleansing of what is already there. Begin at the spring this morning, and the streams — today’s words, today’s reactions — will run clearer on their own.