"Follow your heart." It's the common, fairytale expression we've all heard for as long as we can remember. Our culture shouts this mantra at us everyday, sometimes explicitly (consider the Disney Channel) or implicitly by the values and attitudes it endorses and encourages. It sounds sweet. It sounds magical. It sounds empowering.
What does it really mean though? "Do what thou wilt." That's what it means. Do whatever makes you happy because, if it makes feel good, how can it be wrong? After all, doesn't God want you to be happy? He loves you, right?
I would argue that God does NOT want you to be happy all the time. Why? Happiness is unreliable. Happiness is based on our circumstances. And, since we live in an imperfect world, our circumstances aren't always going to be ideal. Finances are goimg to be unstable. Relationships are going to be rocky. Loved ones are going to pass. Hearts are going to break. Terrible tragedies are going to occur. Life is messy, confusing, and painful.
So, don't put your confidence in this life; put it in God. Put it in His unchanging character, His eternal promises, and His unfailing love.
God wants you to be joyfully fulfilled. This is the problem with "following your heart." The heart doesn't know what it wants! It is constantly changing with the tides and circumstances of life. It is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) No one can know it! Not even you! For this reason, our own hearts can sabotage us. They can lead us to something that may make us happy for a time, but not fulfilled. It might feel so right, but if it is outside of the will of God, it's going to leave you more empty and broken than before.
Don't you think the God who created your heart knows how to fill it? Don't "follow your heart." Follow God. Let Him lead your heart, and with time and submission, He will "remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26) This is the way to true life and fulfillment.
