I saw a card today with one of those messages on it wanting the recipient to follow their heart. This seems to be a common saying and I’ve thought about this before. An advertisement for K.T. Tunstall’s song about the black horse and the cherry tree says that the message to be given is to listen to your heart.
I heard it and thought “Like that hasn’t been said a few thousand times before.” It makes as much sense to say the message of this song is “Be nice to one another.” Yeah. We’ve all been told this. It’s hardly new teaching. Hardly anyone will hear that and think “Wow! That never occurred to me before!”
The group D.H.T. has a song with the title of “Listen To Your Heart” and I’m quite sure that if I just typed for song lyrics or titles, that I’d find this same message showing up over and over. It’s almost akin to when Jiminy Cricket says to Pinnochio that he should let his conscience be his guide.
Now I think there’ such a thing as intuition. However, what I am concerned about is that we might give too much heed to inner feelings. For me and my friends, a common joke has been that if we had listened to our every inclination, we’d be fathers a few thousand times over by now and sitting in jail.
Our culture spends too much time listening to themselves. It is either giving our feelings divine authority or it is telling ourselves untruths about ourselves. I believe fully in telling yourself the truth. We as Christians should be people of truth after all and if something is true, we should tell ourselves that and live accordingly.
If Scripture is true, our hearts are wicked. Now I know Christ gave us a new heart, but there are many aspects we can’t trust. There are a number of topics I’ve switched my views on from time to time and each time I had strong conviction. There are many things we’ll say we do things we know are wrong and feel no chastisement whatsoever. How you feel during an action though is not the gauge of whether that action is right or wrong. How you feel when making a decision is not the gauge on whether it’s wise or not.
If you think something is intuition, check up on it first. Talk to people you trust and of course, spend time in the Scriptures. I have no problem with prayer either. I have a problem though with people praying and expecting God to decide for them. He gave you a mind. Use it.
My main concern is that we simply remember as Christians where our authority lies. When a term seems to become a slogan, maybe it’s high time we examined it.
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