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The Heart...

             The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

“His heart is in the right place.”

“I know in my heart.”

“Trust your heart, it won’t lead you wrong.”

I wonder what would happen if those who are so certain of our hearts did a scientific study of the percent of times that the heart was right and the percent that it was wrong. In Old Testament law, if a prophet was ever wrong, even once, the prophet was to be put to death. And if the prophet suggested the people follow some other god, the prophet was to be put to death. And today’s passage makes it clear that our hearts – our selves – are not the best choice of guidance.

This is something that C. G.  Jung pointed out in his essay The Undiscovered Self. We can subjectively decide whether something is a good idea, but on our own, we have no means of objectively examining it. If you ask another person, you’ll get a different perspective, but it’s like asking someone you meet in a maze how to get out. It’s another human’s perspective. It’s only when we can find the perspective of someone who is not in the maze that we can get an objective view.

Ultimately, we really have a limited number of sources for our decisions. Our heart or ourselves is clearly inadequate. Your thoughts are not likely to be original to yourself. You have been influenced by all the other people in the maze.  The opinions of additional people will be influenced in the same manner. We learn from experience when someone or some group have led us wrong several times – or we should. One error for which we should be on our guard is the notion that there’s nothing but the maze. They may be right, but they have no means of objectively discovering that. In fact, that is precisely the thinking that led to Plato’s writing about “The Cave.”

We cannot trust ourselves to take us where we have not been. If we do, we’re far more likely to fail than to succeed. And the One who searches our hearts and minds will know whether we have trusted Him, the world, or ourselves. The goal here isn’t to take all choice away from us, but to guide us to better choices.

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