My Heart Knows

My heart knows. I used to say I could feel it in my gut, but I guess it's really my heart. At least that's what John says.

1 John 3:19-22 "This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. "

Those gut feelings that say, "This isn't a good idea," or, "I don't feel good about what I just did" are my heart condemning me. That twinge of conscience, or the Spirit guiding, or whatever phrase you want to use, is God letting me know that I'm not meeting His standard.

On the other hand, when that hard-to-name voice inside, or feeling, is good, that's really good. That means, John says, that I can be confident of God's affirmation. I can ask anything I want. That sounds like the key to the mint, but there's sort of a catch: When I'm living that way, what I want is what's good for other people, for God's will to be done, for peoples' hearts to be moved, and God will always grant that.

That's the greatest blessing of all, to be so attuned to God that I forget about myself. No way my gut can feel bad about that.