Jeremiah 7:24: My Retrograde Heart

But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. - Jeremiah 7:24

One of the dangers to the calling of any follower of Jesus is the retrograde heart. My heart tends to fall back and not fall forward. My heart is (as the dictionary says) "tending toward or resulting in a worse or previous state." That influence--my heart's influence--just puts me in a spiritual spin cycle.

Rich Mullins captured it well in his song, The Maker of Noses, when he said:

And everyone I know wants to go there too
But when I ask them how to do it they seem so confused
Do I turn to the left?
Do I turn to the right?
When I turn to the world they gave me this advice 

They said boy you just follow your heart,
But my heart just led me into my chest
They said follow your nose
But the direction changed every time I went and turned my head
And they said boy you just follow your dreams
But my dreams were only misty notions
But the Father of hearts and the Maker of noses
And the Giver of dreams He's the one I have chosen
And I will follow Him

At the same time, the Spirit is renewing us day by day (2 Cor. 4:14), fulfilling God's promise that our heart of stone would be displaced by a heart of flesh (Eze. 34:36). So the spiritual discipline of solitude is designed to remove distractions so that we can hear the quiet voice of God that we are so unaccustomed to hearing. For me this most readily happens on long business flights or long drives with the radio turned off.

Now, the cynical among us might dismiss this searching for a "still, small voice" as wish fulfillment or self-talk, not really the voice of God. While I believe that God can and does speak, that skeptical voice does raise a good point: how do we know the difference? Frankly, "listening to my heart" and "listening to the Spirit of God" can sound the same. To make it worse: The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jer. 17:19) Our unchanged heart masquerades as the voice of God!

I have been there, thinking I was hearing God when, in fact, I was listening to a script prepared by heart that sounded holy and godly, but in fact was false. I wish I could hear it clearly, like Peter in the early church. He is walking to the temple and he hears a poor and crippled man asking him for money, stops, makes a brief speech and then heals the man (Acts 3). So here is the question that bothers me: How did he know? How did he know to stop that time and heal that man? I mean, he didn't stop for every one of the beggars or sick. How did he know that when he reached out his hand to pull the man to his feet that he would be able to stand that time? Who told Peter? God, obviously. But that require a level of intimacy with God and a level of awareness of God's voice that I don't have. I wish I did, but I don't.

So I have to rely on some guidelines I've developed, to help me keep out of trouble. They are not gospel, they are just guidelines based on the Bible, my experience with myself and observations from others who I trust.

1. Whether something is difficult or easy is not an indicator as to whether it should be done or not.
2. My heart is more concerned about the way something looks that what it really is. Personal descent is sometimes the path of wisdom.
3. If my thoughts center around a person, rather than the goal, I'm probably not on the right track.
4. I should expect that God will pull me in directions that I wouldn't normally consider, because He is God and I am not. Some rebukes are painful, others are refreshing. All can be learned from.
5. I don't like confrontation, so I have to watch my heart most carefully when I might anger or disappoint someone by my decisions.