Don't Tell My Heart...

...my achy breaky heart. OK, I'm really sorry about that. I really am very sorry for reminding you of that horrible line from that horrible song. If you have no idea what I am referring to, then consider yourself blessed.

But I was thinking about "the heart" earlier this week and that song popped into my head. And in a weird way, the sentiment of the chorus of that song could almost describe the very thing I was thinking about. Bear with me and allow me to quote some of the rest of that song. It's been a really long time since I heard it, so don't hold me to a word for word recitation.

Don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart,
I just don't think he'd understand.
Cause if you tell my heart, my achy breaky heart,
he might blow up and kill this man.

I promise I won't quote that song anymore for the rest of this post! But the general idea of it, that our heart a) doesn't understand things and b) can kill us, or lead us to death, are very serious issues and worth exploring.

I have got what I consider to be a profound and palpable faith. What I mean is that it is the real deal, not just something I toy with, and that you can (at least I hope) see real evidence of it in my day to day life. We did a program at my church about 5 years ago that was designed to pinpoint what our individual spiritual gifts were. My two strongest were faith and discernment. I have no idea what the results of that program would be if I went though it today. I am light years ahead of where I was then as far as my spiritual maturity goes. But I think it was actually pretty accurate in detecting faith as a spiritual gift of mine.

But despite that, I still struggle with some areas of doubt. There are certain issues that constantly come up in my mind and I have to struggle through them every single time. They don't just quietly go away on their own. My faith is ultimately victorious, but still, a struggle is involved. As my spiritual maturity has increased, these doubts and accusations against God have become much rarer, but they still pop up from time to time. When they do pop up, I am able to overcome them, but it takes a conscious effort to do so.

The issue of hell and eternal damnation is the biggest of these doubts. I am not ashamed to admit that, although I acknowledge the reality of hell to be very real, I have a very hard time coming to terms with it. I know exactly what the root of this problem is. I (and I believe, much of humanity) have a very skewed understanding of God's holiness versus man's depravity. Both of those are big issues, and I'm not going to attempt to cover either of them right now.

Rather, I am going to share with you the verses that allow me to be at peace with the issue of hell. You might not struggle with the exact same issue I do, but I am willing to bet most of us have something that causes us to doubt. Something that we have a hard time coming to terms with. I hope that ultimately all of my doubts, which stated bluntly could be called accusations against God, will be completely wiped away. But until then, these are the verses that I call to mind whenever my doubts start worming their way into my mind.

Proverbs 3:5-6

"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."

Psalm 46:10

"Be still and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!"

Job 11:7-9

"Can you search out the deep things of God?
Can you find out the limits of the Almighty?
They are higher than heaven--what can you do?
Deeper than Sheol--what can you know?
Their measure is longer than the earth
And broader than the sea."

Genesis 15:6

"And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness."

Exodus 33:19

"I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

Exodus 34: 6-7

"And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,"


When those reminders are not enough, and my heart continues to doubt; when I am tempted to lean on my own understanding, and look at reality from my human perspective, instead of leaving things to God and His higher judgement, then I call to mind these two final verses.

Jeremiah 17:9

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked"

Mark 9:24

"Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief."


It is the verse from Jeremiah that usually does the trick. I am reminded that my heart, in other words my emotional human understanding, is deceitful. And oh yes, left to its own devices is indeed desperately wicked.

Once I remind myself of that, I am able to rest in God's sovereignty in all areas of life and eternity.