Trust Yourself and follow your heart
No other message seems to resonate with Americans more than “Trust yourself and follow your heart”. While no direct polling data seems to exist on the popularity of this message, it can be seen, read, and heard everywhere in modern culture. From books written on it, wall art hung in people’s homes, dating experts handing out this advice, and popular preachers and the mental health counseling field affirming this message
Over the years I’ve heard from my clients, when describing their past that the way forward is to trust themselves more and or follow their heart. What’s surprising is many of my Christian clients seem to believe this is sound advice. It sounds down to earth and logical. It’s advice you say to someone who is struggling with performance paralysis or is always second guessing themselves. It is advice that is given to someone that has a complicated issue and can’t make a decision. It’s advice that is given to someone who is in an unsatisfying relationship.
But what does this advice mean? There does not seem to be an objective consensus on it. Some believe that this phrase communicates trusting your gut instincts. Others, that it means to trust your inner voice and to validate it. Some feel it means to listen and treasure yourself more. For the vast majority, trusting yourself and following your heart is a phrase we say to get unstuck from indecision. The author of an article titled, “Trust Your Heart; it knows the way” written in 2022 for The Michigan Daily had an all too common quote, “have faith in yourself”. Popular advice to be sure, but should Christians follow it? Does scripture teach to trust in yourself and follow your heart?
In Psalm 139: 23-24, David famously asks God to search him and know his heart; Implying that not even David knows the depths of it the way God does. The prophet Jeremiah says that the heart is deceitful and desperately sick. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to “trust in the Lord with all our hearts and to lean not on our own understanding”
Why does scripture say these things? It’s as if scripture has insight into our condition that we don’t. Our condition, if you’re not familiar with the message of the Bible, is we are spiritually dead. We are rebels that want nothing to do with God. Romans 3:10-12 say that no one is good, not even one, no one understands or seeks after God. We have corrupted our hearts. These are tough words, but the truth of our condition. While these truths sting and we want to be defensive towards them, the Bible does not leave us in our broken and dead state but offers us God in Jesus (John 3:16). Scripture calls all people to follow Christ, but this is especially relevant for the Christian.
“We actually need to learn how to trust ourselves less and become more dependent upon our Lord Jesus Christ. “
Trust in yourself less
One of the key components to a good mental health treatment plan is addressing a person’s ability to trust. Most that come to counseling have problems trusting others and themselves. Somewhere in their past they were burned and or made a bad decision that they are still feeling the affects of. While mental health counseling can observe why a person has a hard time with trust, emphasizing trust in self and others is like putting the cart before the horse. We actually need to learn how to trust ourselves less and become more dependent upon our Lord Jesus Christ. Going back to Proverbs 3:5-6, we are commanded to acknowledge God in all our actions, and he will direct our path. This is counterintuitive to our culture. We tell ourselves, trust no one, trust and follow your heart because this is the narrative for someone who has been relationally and emotionally hurt, but scripture says to trust the Lord with all our hearts because the character of God is wholly good. (Psalm 145:9)
The heart tells us to address internal issues by doing external things, but that makes about as much sense as treating a bullet wound with a band-aid.
Deny yourself
The other popular refrain I hear from clients in counseling is, “I need to invest in myself more”, which is just another repackaged form of trusting yourself more and following your heart. Again, it sounds like good and logical advice, after all who doesn’t like hearing they should go out with friends more, take up a hobby, spend a little more money on frivolous things, get out and date more, buy new clothes, etc. While some of these things will momentarily make a person feel better, they are not addressing the key issues of a person’s heart, such as what’s their purpose in life, where do they derive hope and how do they move forward from past hurt. The heart tells us to address internal issues by doing external things, but that makes about as much sense as treating a bullet wound with a band-aid. Scripture tells us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus. Denial of yourself does not mean you go and live like a 15th century monk, cut off from the world and mastering the desires of your heart; but it means that you recognize that your heart will lead you astray frequently, not every desire that comes from it is good, and that you should submit it to the one who created it, like we read about in Psalm 139.
We are not promised an easy life when we begin to follow Jesus, but as we walk longer with him, we will grow in our trust of him, we will understand and follow his heart more instead of relying on our understanding, depend on ourselves less and increase in our dependency on him.
Trust Him more and Follow His heart
Christian Bringolf MA LMHC