Broken Hearts Forgotten Promises

A Guarded Heart

When we think of relationships, we have all heard different sayings regarding our heart such as “Follow your heart,” “Trust your heart,” or even “Let your heart lead you.” Has there ever been a time when you had someone in your heart that you had no doubt that they were the one you had been waiting for? If the answer is yes, you are among every other person in the world, including myself, who have allowed their heart to be their compass. Remember those sincere statements we made? “I feel it in my heart that this is the person for me” or, “My heart is telling me this is the one; I feel it so strongly.” I was in the same camp. Unfortunately, though, this has amounted to us following our hearts into some of the deepest, darkest places of great sadness and disappointment. This does not mean that everything in our heart is bad, but neither is it all good.

The Bible has some specific things to say about this heart of ours. Just as we should exercise and protect our physical heart from things that could cause diseases or disorders, Proverbs 4:23 tells us that above all else we should guard our spiritual heart, for everything we do flows from it, or that is, goes out of it. It has been said that the heart is the seat of our emotions, our thoughts, our passions, and our will. If this is the case, we must be careful of who and what we allow to sit in that seat. Once something enters the heart, good or evil, if it is there long enough, it will eventually manifest itself. Proverbs 4:24-27 says, “Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you. Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; Turn your foot from evil.” The writer of this proverb was calling out to the reader to be careful of what goes in their ear and eye gate and to watch out for the paths they take because they could negatively affect their lives. Things such as books, movies, TV shows, or events that are sexual in nature or inappropriate can be toxic to the Christian’s heart. It is saddening when a Christian is drawn back into the world because of what was allowed to take up residence in their heart.

According to God’s Word, we are born in sin and shaped in iniquity (Psalm 51:5). Therefore, we all come into the world with sinful hearts. Only God can give us a heart change. Jeremiah 17: 9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (NKJV). Who can know it? God and God alone. He knows the very secrets of the heart (Psalm 44:21). There are some things we may know on the surface, but only God knows the true depths of our heart. Often, it is not until we find ourselves in precarious situations that we see following our heart is not what we needed but to follow God’s leading.

Heart Desires

Please be cognizant that you can desire someone or something so much and become so fixated on it that you deceive yourself into believing that it is God’s will for you. Many of us have heard it before: If our desires go against the nature of God, the will of God, and the Word of God, we will know for sure that it is not God. 1 John 5:14-15 says, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.” Two of the key terms in this passage are confidence and His will. Once we pray according to His will, we can be confident that we have left our request in His hands and He will respond as He sees fit for our lives.

All of us have had desires about some things we would like to have, places we would like to go, things we would like to do, and people we would like to do them with. But David said, “Lord, all my desire is before You…” (Psalm 38:9). God already knows what we want before we even open our mouths, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with having desires. God created us with the ability to desire, but He wants our appetites to be for the things of Him. We are instructed in Psalm 37:4 to delight ourselves in the Lord, and He will give us the desires of our heart. Unfortunately, many of us read this verse out of context to mean that whatever our heart desires, God will give it to us.

Though we get excited about God giving us the desires of our heart, we often fail to commit to delight ourselves in Him. Some believe delighting yourself in the Lord means simply going to church, reading your Bible, or quoting Scriptures. It could be those things in part, but it all comes back to the condition of the heart. The word translated delight in Psalm 37:4 means to be happy about or merry over. Albert Barnes says, “The fact that you seek your happiness in him will regulate your desires, so that you will be ‘disposed’ to ask only those things which it will be proper for him to grant, and the fact that you do find your happiness in him will be a reason why he will grant your desires.”