We have all heard the expression, “Follow your heart.” But what does that mean? Maybe it’s a work of fiction, like Narnia, or Lord of the Rings? Is following your heart a “gut-feeling,” “intuition,” “logic or reason,” or something we just “feel” is the right thing to do?
The Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9
Nathan told David to, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the LORD is with you.” 2 Samuel 7:3
Does the Bible contradict itself? The answer is no. We simply don’t understand the ways of God so we decide on our own ways.
We strategize, plan and proceed like we can tackle life ourselves and far too often our hearts are unknown even to us.
Very few people know the Real You. We usually have a spouse, and one or two close friends that really know us inside and out. Most people don’t have close people and even though we are wired for relationships we neglect the most crucial two. Our relationship with God and our relationship with ourselves.
If we are not careful we waste years searching, reaching and following things that aren’t even are real hearts. We might not know what God wants us to do or be because the situation seems so strange.
Take Hadassah for example. A biblical heroin. You might know her better as Esther. She went from a from a one-night stand to Queen of Persia. Doesn’t make sense how it happened but many times life itself doesn’t make sense.
How can God use bad for good? How can you know what heart in you to follow? Look at our text…Proverbs 3:5-6
Here we learn there are two foundational facts to following our heart:
I. The Principle to Follow (v.5)
Proverbs is written with two verse linked together. For example in our chapter verse 1-2 go together, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 and so on. These verses complement one another and are called companion verses.
In v.5 we have a Principle. An accepted rule of action or conduct: This principle is practiced and restated throughout the Bible.
To understand the principle we have to examine the first word in the verse; TRUST...Trust here means to have total confidence in and be secure. But how is this trust manifested? How does trust show itself?
In Love—just as our verse says Trust the Lord with all your heart, the Bible tells us to Love the Lord with all your heart.
God established this principle in Deuteronomy to the children of Israel. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:5
It was repeated several more times in Deuteronomy, reinforced in Joshua and then in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Matthew 22:37, Jesus said to him, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
Love and Trust are hand in hand in the Bible in our relationship to the Lord. They also are hand in hand in life. When we love someone we trust them and when we trust someone we love them.
Esther loved her uncle Mordecai. Mordecai persuaded Esther to keep her Jewish heritage a secret. Mordecai had uncovered the plan that all the Jews would be slaughtered. The plan was put in place by Haman.
Haman was the right hand man of king Xerxes but he was also a servant of Hell. Haman was possessed by the same Devil that possessed Hitler. Wipe out the people of God.
So what do we do when all Hell breaks lose against us? When we are at our wit’s end and we cannot find or even look for a light in the darkness.
Notice the word LEAN in v.5 It means to lean on for support. The word is used as rely on or rest in. Do you begin to see the picture of the principle?
In Exodus 33:14 promised Moses and His people by saying these words, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Jesus spoke the same principle in the N.T. with these words, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
Where do we go when life wears us out? Job lost all his Possessions and all his children. His wife heartbroken, in anguish gave him this advice. “Curse God and die.” Probably how she felt in the darkness.
But Job had three friends and they all came to the same Conclusion—you sir have sinned and it must be a biggie because look what God did to punish you. But his friends didn’t know his heart.
No one knows our heart like Jesus. We don’t know our own hearts sometimes and in those times we must LEAN on JESUS!
Christian song that says...“Where do I go but to the Lord?”
Or what about “Leaning On The Everlasting Arms?”
Leaning on Jesus, leaning on Jesus safe and secure from ALL Alarms!
Maybe we need to do this….“Learning to lean I’m learning to lean, learning to lean on Jesus”
No matter how you, Slice it, dice it, drop it or chop it, We must lean on and trust in Jesus. I sound like and infomercial…Wouldn’t that be great! For 19.95 you can…Learn to Lean! Job had to learn even more in his tragedy...Job said…
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him.” Job 13:15 I will trust God if He kills me and by the way my friends, “God knows my heart!”
Esther had to go before the king to save her people. The commandment was written that No man or woman may go to the king without being summoned, and if they did they would be killed.
Mordecai said go to the king. Esther reminded him of the decree. Smart lady, but then God got a hold of her heart and this is what she sent a note to Mordecai and said have all the children of Israel fast for three days and I will also, listen to what she said, “Then I will go to the king even if it is against the law, and if I die, I die.”
Esther 4:16
Don’t lean on what you can figure out or what other people say that don’t know The Real You. Trust the Lord
That’s the principle.
II. The Process to Follow (v.6)
We need to know the rule but we need more than just the rule. We as humans need a continuous action...We have to have a systematic process that we can wrap our minds around.
The Bible tells us, His way are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8)
We may not be able to always understand the principle of
God’s love when we are in a situation like Job or Esther. We then must have a process. This is why v.6 is necessary.
“In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”
Ways here refers to as we are living our life’s journey our habits and moral character should be all about acknowledging Him...What does that mean? SEEK HIM in every aspect of our lives...business, home, hobbies, health, not just church every part of our lives should be Him first.
By the way the process started clear back with the principle in Deuteronomy. The Bible says, “But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Deuteronomy 4:29
The process continued through the O.T. and then into the New Testament, we are even told when praying to “Ask and it will be given, Seek and we will find, knock and it shall be opened.” Matthew 7:7
If we seek Him and His will what is beyond our reach? If every part of our lives is seeking to bring God glory then our heart’s are acknowledging His will be done.
Two of my author heroes are fiction writers. They were also best of friends. J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Tolkien was instrumental in helping Lewis find his faith in Christ again. Because of that Tolkien wrote, The Lord of The Rings, and Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia.
Both have so much Christianity as they pit good against evil they should make all of us stand up and cheer. Listen to what one article says about them, “Tolkien and Lewis shared the belief that through myth and legend—for centuries the mode many cultures had used to communicate their deepest truths—a taste of the Christian gospel's "True Myth" could be smuggled past the barriers and biases of secularized readers.”
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2003/aug29.html
Their desire was to spread the gospel through the types of stories they loved as boys. To get the gospel out in ways people would see Christ and break down barriers that hinder the truth.
How do our lives do that? How does our testimony draw people to Jesus and we haven’t even shared the Gospel in words? Do all our ways, acknowledge Him?
Conclusion:
The book of Esther is the only book of the Bible where God’s Name is never mentioned. Not one time do you see God’s name but all through the book God is there. How do we know this?
Because God’s people are in peril. Whenever God’s people need Him, God’s there. You don’t have to wonder if you need to cry out to God, for the Christian it’s in your heart to cry out to God.
It comes naturally or should I say supernaturally. Just like finding out what God wants you to do. It’s not a guessing game. It’s something that you were born to do...follow your heart.
You’ll know it. It will be just like C.S. Lewis when he found his way back to faith in Christ. Without Narnia we wouldn’t have seen the sacrifice the King of Kings made in the wonderful book. We wouldn’t have seen the picture of heaven where all of us are kings and queens by inheritance of our faith in Jesus.
By the way. Esther followed her heart. The time came when she was possibly considering not telling anyone her Jewish heritage and all the rest would have died because Haman tricked king Xerxes.
So Mordecai came to Esther and said some of the best words in the Bible. Listen to them and put yourself in the story.
“Just because you live in the king’s palace, don’t think that out of all the Jewish people you alone will escape. If you keep quiet at this time, someone else will help and save the Jewish people, but you and your father’s family will die. And who knows, you may have been chosen queen for just such a time as this.”
Esther 4:13
You are here on planet Earth for such a time as this. Like Tolkien and Lewis, use what you love, seek him and then you can follow your heart. You can trust your heart if it is set on bringing glory to God. Follow the principle and follow the process.
You life and your heart is not fiction...you were born for such a time as this...Follow your heart.
