Most of us haven’t truly stopped to evaluate the contents of our hearts. We simply move through life with our heart’s unseen voice shaping our conclusions about the things and people around us. The problem with this kind of living is that our hearts are pretty good at convincing us that we’re wise to listen to them––even when they’re misleading us.
Our hearts think they know what is good and bad. But, too often, they’re wrong. Its perspectives can’t be trusted until they’re evaluated.
We’re not saying that everything within the heart is untrustworthy, or that emotions are inherently bad. We’re simply saying that we need to evaluate the contents of our hearts and make sure they’re aligned with the promises and perspectives of God in order to move through life with true wisdom.
In order for this to happen, we need to hand the pen over to God so that He can edit and rewrite the stories of our hearts.
Evaluate the Logic of Your Heart
For most of us, pain has misguided our heart’s logic. Pain is the experience of something that doesn’t reflect God. Our lives are full of so much more pain than we give ourselves credit for.
Our hearts begin to feel inadequate in the wake of a hard-to-please parent’s criticism. Rejection sets in when we feel like we’ve never belonged. A sense of lack of value invades after people consistently seem to use us for their gain. Fear implants itself in our hearts after we are abused.
We call these places of pain in our hearts “Sore Spots.” Sore Spots become interpretive guides that lead our hearts to expect the worst, put up walls, allow shame to rule, or doubt that God is for us.
Pain can cause us to see bad where God sees good. Pain tells us that it’s smart to never trust again after we’ve been burned. It tells us to stop expecting good things so that we don’t get disappointed after we’ve been let down one too many times. Pain tells us we are the exception to the grace we give to everyone else.
A Heart Seeking After God’s Goodness
The point in aligning our hearts to God’s truth isn’t to become naive or overly optimistic; the point is to see things the way God does. Many of us might assume that our hearts are fully aligned with God’s perspectives––especially when we’ve been a believer for a long time. Yet somewhere along the way, life has tested us to the point that we’ve stopped believing in God’s definitions of good and bad, and we’ve inserted our own.
You might say that you believe God is good. But would you still be able to say that with all of your heart after your constant prayer for your mom to be healed from cancer doesn’t work, and you watch her endure excruciating physical suffering in her last months?
You might say that you believe there’s goodness in you. But would you still believe that after you wreck your family through infidelity and cost yourself the future you’d imagined?
You might say you believe in the goodness of humanity. But would you still be able to say that with all of your heart after someone blatantly manipulates and leverages you for their own personal gain?
You might say that life is good. But would you still be able to say that after years of battling chronic pain and being completely disappointed by your marriage?
Aligning the Logic of our Hearts
There comes a point for many of us when we make an exception to believing in the goodness of God’s promises. We use the stories of our lives—the stories written on our hearts—to justify the belief that it’s wise not to trust in goodness anymore. While it may sound smart to listen to the heart under these kinds of circumstances, the problem is that we are the ones who ultimately suffer the consequences.
We end up depressed, anxious, resentful, alone, discouraged, and defeated when we fail to align our heart’s logic with God’s. This isn’t something we can do on our own. Instead, it requires handing over the pen to Him and allowing His truth to come first.
Aligning our hearts’ logic with God’s logic is essential to discovering the unhindered life He has for us. That’s what makes us well and wise––the ability to truly trust God with the outcomes in life, believe who God says we are, keep our hearts open in relationships, and keep going when life gets tough.
Let Heart Logic: Aligning Your Heart for an Unhindered Life lay the groundwork for you and your leadership team while aligning our hearts’ logic with God’s logic. This eBook is essential to discovering the unhindered life He has for us.
Heart Logic: Aligning Your Heart for an Unhindered Life is now available as an ebook.
