Don’t Follow Your Heart, Follow God! - iBelieve Truth: A Devotional for Women - July 4, 2025
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)
For many years, I allowed my emotions to control the way I walked through life and made decisions. If something felt right, I did it. If something didn’t feel right, I avoided it. Needless to say, I surrounded myself with people and situations that satisfied me and filled my feel-good tank. I eventually decided to study theatre and dance in college and made plans to move halfway across the country to Los Angeles. I was going to become a famous actress in Hollywood.
This behavior sounds a lot like the way a majority of people live their life, especially those who are unsaved.
But I considered myself a born-again Christian, and I received so much advice from other Christians to continue to pursue my dreams.
They told me to follow my heart. “Do what makes YOU happy!”
But there was a problem… my heart was wreaking havoc on my life!
My anxiety was still there. Depression was always lurking, and my relationships were a mess!
My heart’s desires were leading me into more pain and deeper into sin because I was constantly allowing my feelings to be the guide of everything in my life… until one day, the Father intervened.
My eyes were opened to my selfishness, spiritual depravity, and an unhealthy addiction to my emotions. I repented for always living for myself, and the Holy Spirit helped me to die to myself daily, and I began to seek the Lord with everything in me by spending time in His Word and attending church regularly.
Ultimately, I learned what it meant to submit my will and seek God’s will for my life, trusting that He would be faithful to direct my path.
One of the first verses that I memorized was Proverbs 3:5-6, which helped me during a time I needed to make a big life decision. Would I still move to LA, or not?
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct[a] your paths” (NKJV)
We must trust God to be our guide, not our heart, as culture may tell us, or even what makes logical sense sometimes to our minds. If we have embraced Jesus as our Savior and the Lord of our lives, the Father has given us His Holy Spirit to lead the way.
If we are putting our trust in everything or anyone but the Lord, we will constantly be disappointed and lead astray and into sin. We must trust in the Lord with all of our heart, which should never be filled with more of this world than God’s Word.
It is our job to make sure that we are guarding our heart with all diligence (Proverbs 4:23) to protect ourselves from deceit and only allow the Truth of God’s Word to be sown in it and take root.
I’m so thankful that during that time in my life while I was faced with a major decision, I kept my heart full of God’s Word, which helped me lean upon Him for wisdom on what to do. One month after deciding that it may not be God’s will for me to move to Los Angeles, I was introduced to my now-husband, and the rest is His story.
My advice to you, beloved one, is do not follow your heart. Follow God instead. He knows what you need more than you do. Trust Him with your entire hear,t and He will mold it to look more like His. Are there things in your life that you are trying to control? Are you allowing your emotions or other people to influence your life decisions and behaviors? Perhaps it would help you make a list of decisions, worries, and concerns and bring them to the Lord in prayer. Beginning to lean upon the Lord and trusting Him is a great place to start. His ways and directions are perfect, and He will never lead you astray.
Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Clay Banks
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If you've been feeling tired, overwhelmed, depleted, or just quietly wondering where God is in the middle of a very full life — this episode is for you. And honestly? It might be for me too, because I'm recording this in one of those seasons myself.
Today we're doing something a little different. Instead of going deep in a passage, we're talking about what to do when deep feels like too much — when you need less, not more. Specifically, I'm walking you through one of my favorite practices for weary seasons: handwriting scripture.
Not typing it. Not scrolling past it. Actually writing it out, slowly, in your own hand — because something happens in your brain when you do that. The words land differently. They go deeper. And over time, they become part of that personal library of God's voice that the Holy Spirit can pull from when you need it most. That's what Psalm 119:11 means when it says I have hidden your word in my heart — it's scripture moving into your long-term memory, where it lives and stays even when you haven't opened your Bible in weeks.
I'm sharing the five verses I wrote out for myself today — and why each one hit me fresh even though I've known some of them for years. This episode is part of our How to Study the Bible Podcast, a show that brings life back to reading the Bible and helps you understand even the hardest parts of Scripture. If this episode helps you know and love God more, be sure to follow the How to Study the Bible Podcast on Apple or Spotify so you never miss an episode!
