Follow or Guard… Which One is It?
We are all familiar with the expression “follow your heart.” In its most common usage, the word “follow" means to go after… to pursue. This phrase encourages us to pursue what we desire. When a high school graduate is trying to select a college, a well meaning parent might encourage them to follow their heart. When you are trying to decide whether or not to stay at your current job, your spouse might ask you what your heart is saying. This might sound good at first, but consider the following definition from Merriam-Webster.
Heart (Noun)
one's innermost character, feelings, or inclinations
When a friend tells you to “follow your heart” what they are really saying is, what do you feel is the right thing to do. If there is one thing that I have learned through my season of depression and anxiety it is that feelings are not facts. Often what our heart is telling us, what feels right, is actually our body lying to us. If someone is having a panic attack they might feel like they are in danger, but it’s not true. I’ve had many panic attacks and none of of what I feared ever came true. The body is simply lying by creating a feeling of intense fear that triggers severe physical reactions when there is no real danger or apparent cause.
You don’t have to wrestle with panic attacks to fall prey to the lies that feelings can lead us to. It can happen to anyone. Feelings lie to us all the time. They tell us that we will be happier if we divorce our spouse. Feelings get us to believe that we need alcohol at night to be able to relax. They lead us to believe that pornography will provide sexual satisfaction. If one of our kids is late coming home, feelings can lead us to think that something terrible has happened. As you can see, following your heart is not always a good indicator of what we should do. So, if feelings are not facts, and we are not to follow our hearts, how do we make wise choices? The Bible gives us the answer.
The world says “follow your heart,” but God says “guard your heart.” The word “follow” means to go after or to pursue. The word “guard” means to protect or secure. To use sports terms, one is offense and one is defense. The job of a defensive lineman is to recognize what is coming at them and to stop it from getting to the quarterback. This is what we are to do with our hearts and our minds. We need to be aware of the feelings and thoughts that are coming at us and then protect, guard our hearts. As the Apostle Paul writes, we need to take our thoughts captive.
If you wrestle with your thought life, there is good news. You can change! If I did it, so can you. We have to believe that if God tells us to guard our hearts, and if God tell us to take every thought captive, then it must be possible. God would never ask us to do something that we were not capable of doing when we partner with God and daily trust Him.
If this is a struggle of yours, I would encourage you to pick up the book, “Don’t Follow Your Heart” by Jon Bloom. “This book contains 31 meditations for recalibrating your heart. It is a collection of helps for common heart problems. Because your biggest problems in life are heart problems.”
Don’t Follow Your Heart
God’s Ways Are Not Your Ways
Author: Jon Bloom
https://www.desiringgod.org/books/dont-follow-your-heart