How do you convince a young person who “knows” what’s best for himself and anyone who tells him otherwise is boring and old? If you try to sit him down and talk sense into him, he will just roll his eyes and object to everything you say. Even if you tell him you were once just like him and you have suffered the consequences for being a hard-head, he says he’s not you and so it will be different for him.

I can’t tell you how many of those young men/women I have tried to talk sense into over the years, only to have them reject what I say completely. But those same young people, years later, regretting the choices they have made, come back and tell me that I was right all along and they should have listened. But their problem now is trying to talk sense into their own sons and daughters! Now, they can’t convince their own sons and daughters about the choices they are about to make even though as a parent, they know exactly how it’s going to go down…

Isn’t that one of the most frustrating things in life? It’s those people who are in the wrong (or about to be in the wrong) who so strongly believe is right and no one can convince them otherwise. They are following their heart! But their heart is desperately wicked!

“The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Jeremiah 17:9

Listen, it is our heart that is wrong. One of the worst advices we can give to another person is to tell them follow their heart. One of the worst advices we can take from another person is for us to follow our heart.

Unless their heart gets right with God, no matter how many anecdotes or statistics or examples we show and tell, we are not going to convince them. But what about you? Do you listen to your own heart? Or do you do the opposite – which is to listen to the voice of God and trust Him.

That’s right. The opposite of following our heart would be to follow God. Rather than trusting our own way, we are trusting God’s way. And what does HIS way look like? Here are some principles…

God’s way: 1) God’s way always puts the focus on God and not on you. 2) God’s way will often seem like death to you rather than life. 3) God’s way is for the individual to sacrifice the self for the community and not ditch the community for the self. 4) God’s way may not give you peace until you are resolved to follow His way no matter the consequences.

Commit your way to the Lord. Commit your wayward son/daughter to the Lord. Commit your unbelieving spouse to the Lord. God can do miracles. Don’t give up on Him. Hope in Him.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, 

whose trust is the Lord.

He is like a tree planted by water,

that sends out its roots by the stream,

and does not fear when heat comes,

for its leaves remain green,

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Jer. 17:7-8

PH