“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV).
The Bible tells us not to trust our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9) or ourselves (Proverbs 3:5) but to rely only on God to make good decisions. So is it ever ok to allow your heart to make decisions? We generally attribute love as coming from the heart. The apostle Paul declares love as of utmost importance in everything we do (1 Corinthians 13:1), so how do we reconcile these opposing thoughts? Can love ever lead us astray?
A few weeks ago I was putting some things away in our house. I heard Tuff crunching on something but by the time I caught him and looked in his mouth it was gone. He was digging under the chair that matches our couch. Sometimes his toys roll under there and he swats at them. So, I went back to my task. Again… I heard him crunching and again I missed seeing what it was. The third time I was able to pull a furniture staple from his little mouth. He had torn the underneath fabric from the chair and the staples that held it in place were popping out. Apparently, they make tasty snacks. After a trip to the vet, we found out he ingested two staples. Because Tuff is small and the furniture staples were larger and more robust than the average paper staple, they most likely would not make it through his system without hurting him. If we tried to wait and see what would happen the cost to fix a sliced intestine skyrocketed and the result for us would be clear… to put him down. But now, in this small window of time, we had to decide if the cost of the stomach surgery was something we could manage to afford especially considering our recent home purchase and all the unexpected costs that came with it.
It is always easier to know what to do when the situation isn’t yours. I have often found myself thinking about what I would do if I was in the same situation as my friend/coworker/relative, etc. Since I had no emotional attachment getting in the way the “best” decision was “easy” for me to make. But that’s not how it works in real life is it? Our hearts are involved and it gets messy. Yesterday Pastor Paolo made this point during his sermon: Action means nothing if the heart isn’t involved. Why we do what we do matters as much if not more than the doing itself. The short answer is “yes” love can lead us astray which is why we should use both our “brains” and our “hearts” to make decisions. They keep each other in check ensuring that whatever we do we do it by giving not just one part of us but our all to the Lord.
Perhaps my heart still led me astray but we opted for surgery.
