Follow Your Heart?

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” Jeremiah 17:9

I’m sure you have heard the phrase, “Follow your heart.” There is even a website lining out how to follow your heart in fifteen steps (with pictures). But is following our heart really the best idea? The Bible says that the human heart is the most deceitful of all things. Is that really what we want to be following?

Proverbs 4:23 says to “guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” David failed to guard his heart and ended up coveting someone’s wife, committing adultery and having her husband murdered. David followed his heart when he pursued Bathsheba. His deceitful, wicked human heart led him away from the will of God and got him in a lot of trouble.

But even when we selfishly pursue the evil desires of our heart, God stands ready and willing to forgive. David repented of his sins and the Bible later tells us that his heart was fully devoted to the Lord his God. David began to guard his heart instead of blindly following it and became known as a man after God’s own heart and served the purpose of God in his own generation.