In today’s culture, if we ask for advice we are often given these three words: “follow your heart”. Though this sounds attractive, we must see the lurking danger behind it. To follow one’s own heart means allowing emotions, desires, and feelings to take full control of your life. This can be quite damaging if you think about it. Our emotions are constantly changing and can be easily influenced. You can be happy one minute, then sad or angry the next because of the way someone has treated you.
If we allowed our emotions to control everything we say and do, we would spread chaos everywhere we went. Just think, you act out in anger, desperation, and sadness. What do you think is going to happen? You will end up regretting everything you have done. As is the case when we act out with these harmful emotions, we end up hurting those close to us and causing more damage. When our emotions take over, we tend to act irrationally. One such example comes to mind with all of the riots that have happened recently. By acting on emotion, towns have been looted and burned.
“Following the heart” can also mean being “true to yourself”. These days, being true to oneself can mean redefining your very identity. For example, a man can identify as a woman simply because his heart “tells” him he is. Your heart may be telling you that it feels right, but the Bible clearly states that it is wrong. I am not saying being true to yourself is always a bad thing, but when we follow our emotions exclusively, we lose sight of truth and rationality. Although the heart is an important vital part of our lives, we should watch what we let it handle.
God can help us with this. It says in Ezekiel 36:26: “ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”. When we accept Christ as Lord and Saviour, He creates in us a new spirit and gives us a new heart. Our hearts will no longer yearn to live worldly but rather to follow God and His will.
As humans, we still have the urge to sin and fall into temptation from time to time, but because of salvation, we will have less of a longing to do so. When we are faced with the leading of the heart, God is ready to rescue. As 1 John 3:20 states: “If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything”. God is greater than anything we face. With His strength, we can overcome any temptation and the obstacles that follow.
