How many times have you heard the advice, Follow your heart, it won’t lead you astray? The assumption being that deep down inside, we know what we want and what we want is good for us.

This view of the heart insists that before interacting with the world we exist as beautiful, unblemished creatures. If we make contact with that part of ourselves, we’ll steer ourselves with clarity.

Advertisers revel in this thinking, allowing influencers to promote like wildfire spreading through dry timber. Prophets of our day trumpet the message and anyone looking to undergird their lifestyle finds ready support—I’m just following my heart.

But Jeremiah uncovered an inconvenient truth about our hearts. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

According to the scriptures, our inner guiding spirit is duplicitous and diseased. The heart cannot be easily understood, let alone trusted implicitly.

The choice lays before me. Trust my heart, or trust the words of the Lord.

Ironic, but I can’t ask my heart for guidance on this question—it will lie to me. If I ask the Lord (and take time to listen), I’ll get a better result.

Or, I can just read the words of Jeremiah where it’s all spelled out.

Jeremiah 17 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Nick Fewings