We’re told from every angle to follow our hearts, but is this good advice?
This topic has been on my mind a lot in the past few months: Being aware that our hearts can be deceptive, and that we need to choose to obey God, even when our hearts are telling us it’s okay to disobey…
And the boys illustrated this beautifully the other day. Oh, my mommy heart.
Wednesday morning, I told the boys that we should get our chores done, while daddy made breakfast, so we’d have less to do on our list afterwards. When I said the chores were to clean the toy room and make the beds, G started complaining right away. He hates cleaning the toys up.
I said we’d do the beds first, and all while he made the bed, he was complaining, and trying to get out of cleaning the other room. Finally, after I tried to tell G that it’s part of the responsibility of having toys that we clean them, K spoke up. What he said floored me: “I’m disobeying my heart. I don’t want to make the bed.”
K knew that making the bed was the right choice, and he chose to do that, rather than follow the desires of his heart and disobey me; and he told his story, to encourage G who was going through the same struggle.
The conversation that followed helped us get our hearts right. G stopped complaining, and helped with the toy room quite happily afterward!
We talked about how sometimes our hearts can want things that are actually sin. But God tells us what sin is in his word, that sin is wrong and separates us from him, and that he calls us to obey him.
And sometimes, that means “disobeying” our own hearts, so that we can remain in a good relationship with our God.