Disney movies, graduation speeches, motivational blogs, and even some well-meaning mommies preach, “Follow your heart.”

Let’s appreciate the idea that our head knowledge can’t always engineer in our minds what we truly need to understand. After all, love is more than a legal contract. It’s truly a matter of the heart.

But that doesn’t mean that the human heart should be calling the shots. “The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9). If you follow your heart, it’s going to lead you astray sooner or later. And you may not realize it until it’s too late. 

Now, don’t be heartless. Employ your heart. Involve your heart. Put your heart into the service of God’s kingdom work around you and in you. Yes, go at it with “all your heart” (Mark 12:30). 

In the same way, you love and serve God with all your money, but your money isn’t telling you what to do. You love and serve God with your body, your time, and what you eat and drink. But these must not be your masters. No, you manage them. You are the steward of them as gifts from God employed for his glory.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). You lead. Your heart follows. From the outside of your heart, you take a position of guarding and protecting it so that it can serve you.

Don’t follow your heart. Lead your heart.