Be True to Who?

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    High-school Musical.  The Little Mermaid. Frozen. All Disney movies, yes. All admittedly fun movies with great songs, plots and even a few nice lessons along the way. However there is one aspect of these movies that I didn't realize was harmful till now. The idea of being "true to yourself" and following your own heart regardless of anything else. While in the movies this leads to good decisions and happy endings, that mentality doesn't always end up with a happily ever after. 

After all, the heart is a compass with a broken needle. 

    Let me go a little more in depth into that statement. Humans are faulty creatures. We are led by selfishness, greed, and countless other nasty things. We make mistakes on an almost everyday basis, and we get ourselves into situations caused by our own malintent. And yet the world instructs us "be true to yourself, follow your heart and all will go well." I'd like to formally apologize to all my favorite childhood movies, but that simply isn't true. Being true to who we are naturally is generally what gets us into a lot of trouble and into our most unhappiest scrapes. And it's due to the sinful nature we are all born with. 
    Following our heart means when we are angry, we lash out at those who care about us. It means when we are sad, we will wallow instead of attempting to get help and find a way out. It means when we are happy, we will think that whatever situation surrounding that happiness is the only thing that will ever make us happy and we will devote our lives to it. And most likely, never find happiness from it again. We are fickle people, and we require stable truth. That can only be offered by Christ.

      The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?-Jeremiah 17:9

  Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured he will not go unpunished.
-Proverbs 16:5

     These verses remind me not to lean on my own understanding, as another passage says. If I follow my own feelings and heart, I will be lead astray. The Lord makes my paths straight (another verse reference) and for that, I am grateful. 
    
       This doesn't go to say that our emotions are not valid, and that we cannot think for ourselves. They are, and we can. If anything, God encourages emotion, and independent thinking. Otherwise, He would have made us robots. There are entire passages in Scripture where the writer cries out in his pain, or joy, filled with emotion. But God is our filter. We need to pass every emotion and thought through His word, and His commandments, or they may lead us astray, because not every emotion is caused by something righteous, and not every thought has the right intent. 

     All this to encourage us to go straight to the best source, map and guide for our choices, emotions and thoughts. The Bible. Read about David and his sorrows. Read about Job's pain and God's responses. Read through the Bible, through the humans who felt and thought as we do, sinfully, and how God made their paths straight and showed them the way. Ask God to help us keep His word in our hearts, a permanent filter between the sinful creature it is, and the righteousness He wants us to follow.

Thank you for reading! Leave your thoughts in the comments and share this if you enjoyed  it! 



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