The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants
““Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.””
Emily Dickenson, Woody Allen, and Selena Gomez. What do they have in common? An internet search on this article’s title produces all three. From different vantage points and circumstances, all three employed the axiom – the heart wants what the heart wants.
Dickenson originated the phrase. In a letter to a friend whose husband was traveling, she wrote, “When the best is gone, I know that other things are not of consequence – the heart wants what it wants or else it does not care.” Gold star for Emily – a nice heartfelt sentiment. What about Woody and Selena?
After an eleven-year relationship with Mia Farrow, Allen began a sexual relationship with and ultimately married Farrow’s adopted daughter. She was 21. Woody was 56. It was a Hollywood scandal. When interviewed and questioned in a 2001 Time Magazine article, Woody responded, “The heart wants what it wants – there’s no logic to these things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that’s that.” Gold star? Not so much.
Selena Gomez titled a song after the phrase. The lyrics chronicle the emotional impact of her tumultuous on-again off-again relationship with Justin Bieber. The accompanying music video opens with a recording of Gomez having a breakdown. The emotion is palpable. The “earworm” of the song after stating there are a million reasons why she should give him up? The heart wants what it wants.
God’s word exhorts us to allow our thinking to reign over our emotions and feelings. Nowhere in Scripture are we instructed to renew our emotions. For God’s children, a renewed mind should dominate and determine the heart’s desires. What about the heart? Put simply, the heart often wants the wrong things. In Jeremiah, the heart is deceitful and desperately sick. In Proverbs, we are exhorted to guard it – to watch over it with all diligence. Why? Because from it flows the springs of life. Proverbs 23:7 states simply, “As a man thinketh in his heart – so he is.”
Pastor, do you pray for God to create a heart of generosity within the flock you shepherd? Christ follower, do you pray for God to create a heart of generosity within you? He changes hearts, cleanses them, and directs them. Nothing moves God’s heart more than the lostness of the world. Oh, that our hearts would yearn for the same – that our hearts would want what His heart wants.
Bart McDonald | SBTF Executive Director