Vulnerable Hearts

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Jeremiah 17:9

Looking back upon my life, if I could pinpoint one thing that motivated most of my poor choices, it would be the lies I believed which caused fear; mostly fear of rejection and abandonment. Rejection and abandonment have been a close companion most of my life. I wasn’t even aware of it until I began to study God’s Word in my early thirties and realized how wounded my heart was by the lies I believed.

Fear of rejection and abandonment were so deeply rooted in my life from childhood that most poor decisions I made throughout my life were motivated by it. Being afraid of rejection by people caused me to stay in unhealthy situations, even at the expense of hurting others, just to avoid the pain of rejection. Blinded by my deceptive heart I became an easy target for the enemy. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Wounded hearts are extremely vulnerable to deception, and Satan is the master of deception and lies. John 8:44 tells us that Satan is the “father of lies.” 

A wounded heart left untreated by God’s healing word is bound to receive and believe the lies of the enemy. I fell into the hands of the enemy time after time because of the lies I believed. For example, for years I believed that I should follow my heart concerning relationships. After all, isn’t that what the world teaches us, to follow our hearts? Because of this lie and living in fear of rejection, I lived in a pattern of sin and failure for years.

Jeremiah 17:9 states that the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Oh sisters, our hearts are so deceitful! We cannot trust them! Many of us make choices based on what we feel in our hearts instead of on truth. This is bound to lead us into many pits of sin. How can we know the truth? Study God’s Word! We need the revelation of His Word so we can recognize what is truth and what are lies. Consider today asking God to open your eyes to any area where you believe lies and to commit to replacing them with His truth as He reveals it to you through His Word.

Carrie Wright