I’ve got a grammar question for you.
(I know, I know . . . Just the thought of English class is probably sending some of you running the other way — but bear with me!)
Which sentence is correct?
Hailey went to the concert with Josh and me.
Hailey went to the concert with Josh and I.
Some of you know the answer. But for others, what feels right, isn’t.
Many of us were repeatedly corrected as children (“No, sweetie, it’s ‘Grandma and I,’ not ‘Grandma and me.”), so we want to hyper-correct to Josh and I. But in reality, the first sentence is correct: Hailey went to the concert with Josh and me, because “Josh and me” is in the predicate of the sentence, not the subject.
To put it in a way that’s easier to remember, if you take out Josh’s name, “me” is the choice that makes sense. (Hailey went with me, not with I.)
Now, if you’re wondering about the random grammar lesson, I do have a point! Just because something feels very very right doesn’t mean it is.
Just as some of you were probably certain the correct choice would always be “Josh and I” in grammar, we’re sometimes 100% certain of things in life . . . that aren’t true at all.
Just because your heart says something is true doesn’t mean it is.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jeremiah 17:9
Way back three years ago, Brittani Scott wrote the article “Don’t Follow Your Heart,” which really resonated with me.
Don’t follow your heart. Relying solely on your own heart, your human understanding, and your first instinct will someday get you into trouble.
The only things we can put our trust in is God and His Word. And then, when we’re legitimately walking with Him, when we’re seeking Him daily in prayer and the study of His Word, we can trust that His Spirit will influence our hearts and minds. But we can only trust in Him, not in ourselves.
So, are you living a certain way because it just kind of seems to make sense?
Are you making choices based solely on what you feel in your heart?
Are you sure something is true even though there’s no evidence for it in God’s Word?
I challenge you to seek out the treasures of the Bible like never before. I challenge you to fast more often. I challenge you to spend more time in prayer than ever before. Then, when you’re seeking to be a reflection of God’s character, you can trust in His heart rather than in your own.
II Thessalonians 2:9-12 talks of a people who “refused to love the truth and so be saved.” Paul even says that God would send them a strong delusion so that “they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
I don’t want to be one of those people “knowing” in my heart that I’m right, when all the while I’m seriously, dreadfully wrong! I want to have a deep, uncompromising love for God’s truth.
God, may we always trust You and Your Word over the fickleness of our human hearts.