There's a popular cartoon floating around the internet that depicts a cartoon heart alongside a cartoon brain. In each the theme is the same: the brain thinks things through and the heart follows what it feels. This is one of my favorite ones:



I find that I identify with the brain character more. However, I hate that about me. I wish a lot of times that I was more like the heart. Why does it matter? Well, although they are all in good fun, I find that the brain is depicted as the smart reasonable one and the heart the crazy, impulsive one. The brain is always reigning the heart back in while the heart overreacts with immense emotion illustrated usually in speech bubbles plagued by caps lock. Sometimes I don't want to be reasonable and I'd love to be a little more impulsive! This, and I know I overthink things 101% of the time and I really wish I didn't. I don't know about you, fellow overthinkers, but I tend to ignore what my heart says and I've found that it actually does more harm than good especially when it comes to my relationship with Christ.

One of the first messages I heard when I came back to the faith in college was on the wickedness of the heart. The pastor was speaking about how silly the phrase, "follow your heart," was for Christians because of the presence of sin in our lives. I get that, and I don't deny it, but unfortunately what I think happened is from then on I discounted what my heart said and only followed my mind. This worked for a while until I realized that my mind was just as wicked as my heart.

There is such a thing as knowing too much and it is painful. Soloman empathizes with this when he says,

"The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief. To increase knowledge only increases sorrow." - Ecclesiastes 1:18

It's good to think through things intelligently, but too much of it can be harmful. I think the saying, "ignorance is bliss," holds some relevancy here. I say this because on more than one occasion, I've short circuited my brain with overthinking over things that I can't explain. I've never admitted this on my blog really, but I was diagnosed at a young age with an anxiety disorder that is due to a chemical imbalance in my brain. Some disorders come along later in life with the presence of a traumatic life event, but unfortunately, my parents saw signs of this in me from as early as age 4. Fast forward to 20 years later and I'm in the midst of the worst battle I've ever had with it. Most of the attacks were fueled by themes dealing with crippling anxiety over questions such as, "what if I lose my salvation?" and, "what if I don't believe at all?" No matter how much I tried to reason with myself, I could not gain certainty on these things and that's important because anxiety demands certainty; when it can't get it, we are back to spiraling because, "but what if?" However, throughout this battle, often with tears rolling down my face, my heart felt certainty when my brain had anything but that. I couldn't figure it out. Wasn't my heart wicked? Should I trust my heart at all? But shouldn't I if it's the one that's on the right track right now?

However, I realized (yet again) that my all or nothing thinking was not biblical at all!

"If you believe in your heart, and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved." (paraphrase of Romans 10:9)

My church says this phrase a lot, as I'm sure many other churches do as well, but familiarity breeds complacency and so as such I heard it every week without ever really hearing it. But one day, again in the midst of a struggle with anxiety, I realized that we are asked to believe with our hearts NOT our minds.

Even in one of the most famous of scriptures, there it was again!

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding." - Proverbs 3:5

It doesn't say trust with your mind, but your heart. In fact it pleads with us not to depend on our own understanding of things.

This is not to say that we should completely discount rational thought or that our minds don't play a role in belief, because that would have us wandering around like the heart in that cartoon. But we shouldn't discount the heart either unless one wants to have the same fate as I did. Rather, I think the relationship between the mind and the heart is symbiotic; they both need the other to survive. God was very intentional about giving us both and as such, I think there's a balance on how they should be used. One should filter rash emotions coming from the heart into rational thought and vice versa.

Recently, I have been struggling with severe doubt that quite honestly terrifies me and triggers the worst anxiety imaginable. I know what I believe and I feel the presence of it in my heart, but I have so many questions I cannot explain. One blogger hit the nail on the head when she said,

"The moment I begin to contemplate some of the stories, promises, and principles in the Bible from a strictly cerebral perspective doubt begins to creep in. Think about it: water turning into wine, multitudes being fed by a few loaves of bread and a couple of lousy fish, a sea parting so that people can cross without learning the backstroke, little guys killing giants, dead people coming back to life...come on! Sounds like something from a Tolkein novel."

I can identify with that! But the thing is, and many have harped on this over the years, the very principle of Christianity relies on faith and the opposite of faith is not doubt, it's certainty. I'd even argue that some doubt is essential to faith because the very act of faith asks us not to be certain about things. I can't explain the oxymoron that is "virgin mother." I have no idea how Jesus was all man but all God at the same time. I can't explain how miracles from the Word and in real life happened and still happen. But I know, mostly in my heart, that it's real and so I'm waiting for my mind to catch up.


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For those of you struggling with doubt, first know you are in good company. Don't forget Thomas was prone to doubt and God still used him. As well as the man who exclaimed, "I do believe, help me in my unbelief!" The same can be said for Mother Teresa, Charles Spurgeon, C.S. Lewis, and more. Although doubt is pretty taboo in the church and is hardly ever talked about, more people struggle with it than you realize. I did want to share a couple of blogs that I found especially helpful though. Perhaps the insight will benefit you as it did me.

Doubting God by Diane Markins
The Doubting Christian by Jason Boyett