For almost a month now I have been talking about this scripture. I couldn’t remember the chapter and verse, but I have told many people of how much I’ve pondered this lately:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and is desperately wicked. Who can know it?”

Paraphrased with strong’s meanings, it could be said like this:  “The heart (inner being, soul, thoughts, memories, feelings) is deceitful above anything else. It is desperately sick, weak and frail. Who can have real understanding of it?

As I picked up a new book yesterday, this scripture that I have been meditating on and “processing” was almost the first thing in the book! Perhaps God has been trying to tell me something?

Anyway, I realized that we are often told to “follow our heart”. But how dangerous is that? If the heart can deceive us more than anything else, why would we want to “follow” it? I know that I certainly don’t want to simply “follow my heart” anymore.

God’s word is vital to us. Another book I’m reading talks about how we seem to always find ourselves having to “choose” in the heat of a moment. This is dangerous because “in the heat of the moment” is full of pressure, emotions, doubts, etc. We need to have already chosen before we ever get to “the heat of the moment”.

In our kid’s klub church ministry we always repeat the same line at least once a week:  “We need to make the wise choice. And where do we go to find out what the wise choice is? The bible!”

I’m growing more aware than ever before that we need to have a clear understanding of God’s word more than ever before. His word is a lamp to our feet. It exposes what is coming up before we stumble (“the heat of the moment”) upon it. It shows us how we are to live and teaches us how to obtain and maintain the relationship with the Holy Spirit so that we won’t have to wait until that instant to choose. The choice was made before.

So, we must learn how to LEAD our heart instead of “just following” it. Because a decision made before is not based upon our feelings, emotions, past experiences, etc. It has been made upon the Word of God being rightly divided and understood through the power of the Holy Spirit as we walk in right relationship with Him.

I want to LEAD my heart by following THE SHEPHERD! “He leads me beside still waters.” “The steps of a righteous man are ordered by God”.

If I am choosing to allow God to lead me daily, I am choosing to lead my own heart to do so. And if I am doing so, I won’t find myself in many of the situations I have found myself in before – where I “followed my heart in the heat of the moment” to a place that wasn’t good.

Yep. Been there, done that. Got scars to prove it!

How about you?