leading your heart

Over the past two weeks I have been going through a very difficult time in my life. I just read and completely identified with these two verse that I read:

"The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart." Proverbs 17:3

"Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you." Psalm 9:10

Often we hear that we should "follow our heart" but in reality "the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9). The difficulty I have been facing has to do with a decision that I made last week that I know deep down in my gut, my head, and my spirit was the best thing for me to do. However, my stubborn little heart has put up a fight like you wouldn't believe!!!

Yesterday was probably one of the hardest days so far. I was overcome by emotion, crying, not thinking clearly, crying more, and not even sure how to talk to God about the whole situation. All I knew was that I was undone.

This morning all I could do was say in absolute honesty, "God, please show me what to do." It was as though He was waiting for me to give up.

As I opened up the Bible, I read the verse above and a couple of things became very clear.

First, I cannot follow my heart. I must force my heart to submit to God when it doesn't feel like it. It's really okay to force it. I remembered two things: the quote from the movie, Fireproof, when the Christian firefighter man was telling the protagonist how to go about doing what's right in his marriage when he said, "you have to lead your heart". I also remembered a sermon on Psalm 42 that focused on the deliberate action of the Psalmist to "put [his] hope in God" (Psalm 42:11) even though his soul was downcast and disturbed.

Second, I can trust in Jesus. An image came to me of my heart wearing a sort of a harness with reins attached to it. I had the reins in my hand and I had a choice. Either strap the reins around myself and be controlled by my heart wherever it would take me (and essentially be a slave to my heart's (aka flesh) every whim) OR (here's where the image gets kinda hilarious) get on the back of the motorcycle that Jesus was driving, hand over the reins to him, and put my arms around His waist trusting that where He would drive my heart and my whole person would be best (and most crazy & adventurous!!).

Third, courage even means doing things afraid. Ideally, I would put my trust in God with 100% joy, hope, peace, certainty, and all the exhilerating feelings of being on top of the world, but that's just not always the reality. A lot of times I get flat out scared. I get nervous, I freak out! Yes, we all do, and God can handle us freaking out on Him. Moses, David, Jonah, Abraham, Gideon, Esther, Peter, Ruth, Paul, Mary, John, Ezekiel and many countless other godly men and women in the Bible and contemporary times have FREAKED OUT. They have turned totally pale, spoken out their questions in honesty, cried out in anguish, pleaded in desperation, and even wrestled with God. I believe God would rather have us be real with Him and come to Him AS WE ARE than to try to pretend ('cause that's really impossible with Him after all). My point is that He delights not just in our honesty, but in our obedience and submission to Him even when we feel nervous. Through that obedience, He can lavish us with His peace in knowing that we are under His protection, joy in feeling His delight, hope in Who He is and the reminder that He tells us, "I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct (NOT according to his emotions or feelings), according to what his deeds deserve" (Jer. 17:10). When we do God's will (even though it may be extremely difficult and require tremendous courage), He usually helps bring about the pleasing emotions after we have stepped out by doing the right action.

So, in all of this, I am absolutely grateful that God doesn't give up on us, He's committed to our growth, and He can handle us. Phew!