DON’T FOLLOW YOUR HEART by A. Craig Troxel for Core Christianity
“Man’s. . . wants are to be trusted. . . even when their gratification seems furthest off, the uneasiness they occasion is still the best guide of his life.”—William James, “The Will to Believe”[1]
Listen to Your Heart
Whenever we are deliberating over a decision, it is not uncommon to hear a friend say, “You should listen to your heart.” Such a sentiment is not only common, but it has also been exalted to a sacrosanct place of moral authority in our culture. It is as if doing anything else would be a denial of your very self. And how could anyone do that? After all, a person must be true to who they are. Anything less would be inauthentic.
So what should we make of this?
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What Is the Heart?
It may be worth asking what we are listening to if we’re listening to our heart. According to the Bible, the word heart is one among several terms (like soul, spirit, and conscience) that refers to our inner life. But the word heart goes beyond these others. It is used with more frequency and it is used with more subtlety.
On the one hand, the heart communicates the unity of everything we are within. All of our thoughts, plans, wants, feelings, and decisions are generated from this one point, which functions as the governing center of our inner life. On the other hand, the heart comprehends a trinity of the heart’s spiritual functions: the mind (what we know), the desires (what we love) and the will (what we choose). Thus, the word heart in Scripture uniquely captures both the unity and the complexity of our inward life. So “following your heart” is listening, as it were, to your thoughts, longings, and choices. You may say, “So what could be so bad with that?”
