Follow Your Heart?
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV)
Follow your heart. It is on posters, in movies and in a lot of well-meant advice. It sounds freeing. Scripture is much less sure about it.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” That isn’t a comfortable verse, but most of us know it is true from experience. Proverbs is even more blunt: “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered.”
Here is a simple experiment. Think back over the times you did something purely because it felt right in the moment, against what you knew God had said. Keep an honest ledger. How did those choices turn out?
The answer isn’t to ignore your heart. It is to bring it to God. He knows it better than you do, and he can change it. Don’t follow your heart. Lead it to him, and follow him.
Read it yourself
Read Jeremiah 17:5–10. What two pictures does Jeremiah use for the man who trusts in man and the man who trusts in the LORD?
When have you followed your heart against God’s word? What happened?
Lord, you know my heart better than I do. Search it, change it, and teach me to follow you. Amen.