Follow Your Heart: Good or Bad Advice?

I grew up in the 1990s, the heyday of Disney princesses, love stories with happy endings, and the self-esteem movement. I’m almost certain I owned a t-shirt that said “Flower Power” on the front in big, bold letters, and I wore jelly sandals during the hot summer months. I loved figure skating and inspirational stories–remember Chicken Soup for the Soul? And then Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul? One of the most popular phrases of the 1990s was “follow your heart,” an outpouring of the feel-good culture in which I was raised.

As a young person, I didn’t take any issues with this idea. To me, “follow your heart” meant something like, “Be who God made you to be.” I wanted to be true to myself, which meant wearing the clothes I liked (anything from Old Navy) and listening to my kind of music (Amy Grant, and later, Jars of Clay). I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be, where I fit in with my classmates, and what kind of man I’d marry. I read Brio magazine and took all the quizzes in the back, hoping to learn something new and important about myself. I daydreamed a lot, about the future and about who I imagined I’d become.

None of this is detrimental in and of itself. It’s okay to wear the type of clothing you like and listen to good music that you enjoy. It’s also okay to figure out who you are and to search for a community where you feel loved and appreciated. I don’t know about those quizzes in the back of Brio magazine, but some of them were helpful. I was just telling a friend the other day that I took a quiz once revealing that my shyness probably came off as aloofness. That was a big moment for me–afterwards, I tried to be as friendly with people as I wanted to be and learned to ignore my timidity more often than not. Daydreaming, of course, can be harmful to your mental health. I’ve learned to keep my daydreams in check in some aspects, but also to use them to my advantage if I’m working on a story or essay (like this one).

“Be who God made you to be” is a wonderful and excellent idea, if rightly defined. I’ve heard some Christians define “be who God made you to be” the same way the world defines the phrase “follow your heart.” In other words, some might say, “Because I desire this, God made me to be this way and he wants me to be happy. Therefore, I will follow my heart–my desires–because that’s what God wants me to do.” This kind of thinking is completely backwards. Rightly-ordered loves (thank you, St. Augustine) and rightly-ordered desires begin with God, not ourselves. If what your heart desires is also in line with God’s will, as outlined in his Word, that is excellent and wonderful and worthy of thanksgiving. If what your heart desires is not in line with God’s will, as outlined in his Word, then you have a dilemma. Do you demand that God fall in line with your desires, or do you turn over those desires to God in love and trust?

I believe that this is the crux of the entire matter. The way the world defines the phrase “follow your heart” would encourage you to do the former, to forsake God’s teaching and do what you desire. If you define “follow your heart” as “be who God made you to be,” then you would choose the latter, trusting in God’s goodness to guide you.

How do you determine who God made you to be? The search for self doesn’t begin by looking inward, but rather by looking outward and up. Think about your spiritual gifts and how you can use them to serve God and others. Think about the unique perspective you can offer the world–nobody else has lived the life you’ve lived. What has God taught you along the way that you can share with others? Think about the people God has placed in your life to love and to love you in return, such as your family, church family, friends, and neighbors. What do you admire about them? What do they admire about you? Most importantly, consider Jesus. He exemplified, perfectly, kindness, gentleness, patience, self-sacrifice, and love. He glorified the Father in all that he did. The Holy Spirit bore witness to who he was, just as the Holy Spirit marks us as belonging to God. First and foremost, Jesus’ death on the cross defines who we are. We have been redeemed, and it is to our joy and freedom and God’s glory to live as such.

The premise of this essay might be a little strange. I began this essay by sharing my own definition of a popular, yet harmful, phrase from my childhood, and how I took that definition and ran with it, so to speak. However, I never quite understood what was so bad about “following your heart.” I do see it now, as the world defines it. But, as I defined it, “Be who God made you to be,” following your heart is a good thing. So, follow your heart, if that means loving God first and using your gifts to glorify him and help others. Follow your heart, if that means enjoying what God gave you to enjoy (fun clothing, interesting music, good books). Follow your heart, if you are a new creation in Christ and your heart’s desires line up with his. Follow your heart, if that means being yourself in the fullest sense, alive in Jesus Christ.

I think, as I consider why I wrote this essay and why this topic has been on my mind for a while, that it was all precipitated by a book I’m reading: How to Find Yourself: Why Looking Inward Is Not the Answer by Brian Rosner. If you’d like a good book to read about identity, this is it. Although I couldn’t specifically cite them, I’m certain a lot of my ideas in this short essay came from Brian Rosner. He has helped me cement many of the ideas I’ve been working through on my own.

Finally, at one point, I wasn’t going to finish this essay. I didn’t like it, and I wasn’t sure I really had anything interesting to say on the topic. (Perhaps you agree!) Sometimes, when I can’t seem to write a cohesive essay about a topic, I try writing poetry instead. Here’s the haiku I came up with, with which I’ll end:

“Follow your heart”: could
There be any worse advice than this?
Follow God instead.

Photo: Disney wallpaper available here