Luke 21:34 (NIV84) — 34 “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap.
Be alert, use some caution. Be purposeful and don't let the day take you. Take control of your day. Listen to God and do the day like He says to, and stay on guard or your heart will be hijacked. Boy, we all know that to be true. You are doing well and before you know it you are stressed out. What happened? Some kind of weariness sets over us, whether physical, mental, emotional or a combination, we are out. Done. Over it. Yet we have to push through it. Or do we?
This list is not all inclusive, but it works for Jesus. Dissipation (partying) and drunkenness evidently brings your heart down. They put a weight on you. Maybe we would think the opposite? Wouldn't getting drunk and partying make it all go away? Nope! It all comes back like a boomerang. That lifestyle takes us out of what we were created for and thereby weighs us down with a burden that we can't bear. It is more than addiction, it is the constant need to escape and to experience the next high. There are a lot of other things that we use for escaping reality, but you get the point.
For most of us, the anxieties, cares, worries, fears of life, are the real villains in weighing our hearts down. My question was how can being careful or alert help? These anxieties and concerns are constant at times. They can be overwhelming. The answer comes back to taking charge of your day, really your life. Anxieties don't get to overwhelm your heart without permission. You get to decide whether or not you will be taken over or not. However if you aren't alert, it just happens to you.
We are not victims of our day or the circumstances that come our way.