“Just follow your heart.” “Pray about it and do what feels right.” “Let your conscience be your guide.”

How many of you have ever had this kind of advice given to you? This is based on an underlying assumption that inclinations and impressions we get in our hearts are a trustworthy source of direction in our lives. In Christian circles, this advice to follow your heart is often prefaced with a call to “pray about it,” but in the end, you do or believe what feels right. We can even wrap this in a language like, “I feel called,” or “I have discerned.” It’s the ultimate trump card to anyone challenging your feelings and decisions. After all, who can challenge you if you’ve prayed and feel called?

We need others to speak into our lives because our hearts can often be wrong. Our hearts can’t always be trusted. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” And Ecclesiastes 9:3 says, “The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil, and there is madness in their hearts while they live….”

God warns us not to trust our hearts because they are full of deceit and wickedness. Our hearts are so depraved because every human being is born with a sinful nature that corrupts everything about them. This doesn’t mean that no one has ever done a good deed in their life, but that even the good things we do are tainted with the stain of sin. And because of this sin, our hearts are infected and broken and can easily lead us astray. This means that the advice to follow your heart is foolish because a sinful heart cannot be trusted.

Instead, we need to be given a new heart, ask God to seek our hearts, and invite others to speak into our hearts. When making a decision or seeking truth, it’s a good thing for us to pray and ask God to move our hearts, but whatever we feel must be put in submission to the clear teaching of the Bible. If what we feel contradicts Scripture, we need to ignore our hearts and trust God’s Word.