Recently, I've been challenged by the concept of knowing and understanding our heart. Whether it be my own therapy journey or the rather uncanny timeliness of John Eldredge's Wild at Heart daily devotionals, the question often arises "Is my heart good?"
If you're anything like me, I grew up with a strong distrust of my own heart and feelings. Far too often, I heard the resounding claims of Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable -- who can understand it?" How are we supposed to reconcile our God-given emotions and feelings when we are confronted with such a statement?
I would like to offer a few points of clarity:
This does not suggest that our heart, emotions, and feelings are inherently evil.
Conversely, this does not give us permission to trust our emotions and feelings implicitly.
Consider the context of the previous verses in Jeremiah 17:
If left to our own internal navigation system, we may experience pleasant surroundings for a time, and even stumble upon periods of absolute peace and tranquility; however, our internal navigation system will ultimately fail us. As a young Army lieutenant (LT), the common (and mostly true) saying was "you can't spell LOST without LT." Imagine some gung-ho officer trying to prove himself to his Soldiers by displaying his epic land navigation skills....and then getting everyone lost (hypothetically speaking, of course...). If I trusted my own instincts and feelings without the guide of a compass or GPS device, I would inevitably become lost.
What then -- or who-- is our compass in life? Can we implicitly trust others to lead us? As well intentioned as our friends, family members, spouses, pastors, teachers are...they make terrible idols. However, if our "magnetic north" is trained on Christ, we can experience the full experience of the heart as described in 17:7-8.
The previous verses depict a stark compare/contrast and offer us an obvious choice in which to live. Choose to speak what is in your mouth and heart in order to have life (17:7-8). If the depths of our hearts are not expressed, confessed, and known -- we will still crave life (and experience some degree of it), but it will be in the flesh (17:5-6). An untrained, unpracticed heart (see also "The lost LT") can render destructive consequences. We must become trained in order to become wise.
To summarize, your heart is not evil - but it may be unwise and untrained. May He be our guide and our navigational beacon.
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