One of the most popular pieces of advice in modern culture is: “Follow your heart.”
Yeah, it looks awesome on a coffee mug, sounds inspiring, and makes a great movie quote. In fact, last night I watched a kids’ movie with my grandkids in which “Just follow your heart” was a major theme.
The problem—and what prompted me to write this post—is that it’s terrible life advice, because your heart changes its mind every five minutes.
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Get It on AmazonOne day your heart wants to study. The next day it wants to binge‑watch videos until 2 a.m. One day it wants a healthy relationship. The next day it wants to text your ex. Your heart is a terrible GPS.
The Bible doesn’t teach us to follow our hearts. It warns us about them.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” — Jeremiah 17:9
Our emotions and feelings, while not always bad, are also not always reliable guides to truth. If you always follow your heart, you’ll end up wherever your latest desire takes you.
If you follow the objective truth that God sets forth in His Word, you’ll end up where you actually need to go, because God wants what’s best for each of us, and He’s been around a lot longer and knows a lot more than our fickle little hearts.
Adam and Eve followed their hearts right into a catastrophe. Rather than obeying God’s instruction not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they thought they knew better than God what was wrong and what was right. Big mistake.
God didn’t create you to be ruled by your impulses. He created you to know Him, walk in wisdom, and build a life on something stronger than feelings and more reliable than “Just follow your heart.”
Feelings make great passengers. They make terrible drivers.
So What?
The next time you’re making a decision, ask yourself: “Am I doing this because it’s true and right, or just because it’s what I feel right now?” Then choose truth over impulse.
Child of God, husband, father, grandfather, rabblerouser, songwriter, pot stirrer, waiting for the King.