Your Feelings Are Lying To You!

We’ve all said it: “I just feel like…”

But what if our feelings aren’t telling us the truth?

In this episode of Living with Boundaries, we dive into one of the most countercultural truths in today’s world—that feelings, while real, are not always reliable. Anchored in Jeremiah 17:9, we unpack what it means when the Bible says the heart is “deceitful above all things” and how that impacts the way we think, react, and make decisions.

Feelings can be powerful—they can shape our perspective, influence our relationships, and even impact our faith. But when we allow them to lead instead of inform, they can quietly pull us away from truth.

This episode challenges the idea of “following your heart” and replaces it with something stronger: anchoring your life in truth, even when your feelings disagree.

If you’ve ever struggled with doubt, insecurity, frustration, or feeling distant from God—this conversation is for you.

Living with Boundaries is a podcast for dads who want to lead their homes with clarity, conviction, and courage.

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Strong families don’t happen by accident.
 They’re built with intention — and boundaries.

Transcript

Marker 01

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Josh, what's going on, buddy? How's your coffee today?

unknown 0:04

It's lukewarm, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Do you how do you drink your coffee?

unknown 0:08

Oh, good question.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Um I like it hot, not lukewarm, like it is right now. And then I hate to say this, and this is a journey I've been on with food. I put about two tablespoons of cream right in.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

You know, you know what's funny, as soon as I asked that question, how do you drink your coffee? I thought of my 13-year-old son who would have said, with your mouth, dad, you drink it with your mouth. Like it's that literal, it's that it's that comical in our house that that's just where we go. We go, I'll go, hey, uh, Linnea, I'm I'm in the car, and Rocky goes, No, you're not. It's just like that's that's where we're at in nowadays with middle school boys. And it's just I can't even tell you the joke that he told me the other night. I I could probably tell it, but I I'll save that for another time. But it was it was pretty funny. I drink my coffee with um with collagen in it. Call it bone dust. No wonder you look so good. We call it bone dust. I'm not even sure if it's working because I'm not quite sure exactly what it's supposed to do, but somebody told me it's healthy and put it in your coffee because it kind of it's it's supposed to not have a flavor, but it does flavor the coffee a little bit. So that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Anyway, that's cool. Hey, I've heard creatine. I've heard people put creatine in their coffee.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Do you take creatine?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

I was for a while. I I do believe it does help with some energy and obviously muscle recovery as we get older.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Well, we took it all the time in college. I mean, it was readily available whenever we really wanted in in refrigerators. It was, I mean, was it ever illegal at one point?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

I'm trying to remember if I don't know if it's illegal, but it's maybe questionable. But I think with the studies now say it's one of the healthiest things you could take.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

I guess this isn't really a health podcast, but we kind of got down that road a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

So um I know in college, when I was on Crete in a lifting, I remember all my cosmics like, dude, you look like a mini hawk.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

That was jacked. Those those were the days, man, when when you just hit the gym all the time. Those are there was a good time. But Josh, how are you feeling today?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

It was funny. My dad, I would always ask my dad, Dad, how are you feeling? And I was respond with my fingers.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

See, yeah, this is he's like my 13-year-old son, just so literal. Uh how how are you feeling? You know, we we ask that question a lot, I think, just in casual conversation. And my my kids will laugh because feelings, although real, lie to us all the time, don't they, Josh?

unknown 2:28

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

So a popular saying in our household, and even my 16-year-old daughter now. I think the last a few podcasts ago, we recorded something. I said a 15-year-old daughter would now have a 16-year-old daughter. Uh, and she'll look at me and go, hey, dad, your feelings are lying to you. And I'll go, Yes, they are. Yes, they are. So feelings, feelings lie to us. Um, what does that mean? Why are we diving into this topic today? Um, because I think our culture embraces the idea of follow your heart. I think our culture embraces, you know, embrace your feelings. And is that biblical?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

That's a big question.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

You know, so in in a little bit of preparation for this today, uh, you know, I I I've often read through the Bible and have realized uh over the years that um our feelings lie to us as not just an opinion, it's not just a statement. Um it's actually true. And uh I think that's something that most of us as middle-aged men uh out here in the western suburbs of Chicago, that uh we we we don't really embrace that. We just kind of recognize it as uh, you know what, that's just the way you know my daughter's feeling today, or that's the way my wife's feeling today, or my feelings are telling me this. And the reality is we don't wrestle with the idea that, man, our our our hearts are deceitful.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Totally. And this might be a little off cue here, but when you said that, or your feelings lying to you, all I can think about is Mr. T going, your feelings are lying to you, something fool.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

You know, uh the 80s movies, the 80s action, raw action movies, and maybe this is just a feeling, so my feelings are probably lying to me right now, but they were so motivating. They were so good, so good. Yeah, the the A team was one of my favorites. I actually watched an episode of that not too long ago. Uh, it was a rerun or something on YouTube. It is a terrible TV show, like just the production and the acting quality, so bad, but at the time it was so good. But uh, you know, I I was reading through Jeremiah uh 17, 9 uh last night, just in like a little bit of preparation, and it says this the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? And you think about that and how countercultural that is to the idea of follow your heart. What is your heart telling you to do? And I just I read that and I go, Man, maybe maybe my heart is telling me to do things that I shouldn't be doing.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Yeah, totally. And I think people today, like you said, everything's off your feelings. I mean, I think so many people need to stop and check their feelings. Does it make sense? I think we just, oh, I feel happy, so I'm gonna be happier. I feel oh, certain political figure just made me upset.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Well, I ain't I would argue right now, anger. Anger is the feeling right now that everybody thinks is justified, no matter what side that you fall on. And and I don't this is nothing to do with the political side of it, but but the reality is instead of taking a step back and going, man, if my heart is deceitful and I'm angry over this, what am I really angry about? And are the actions that I'm taking something that's going to help me process the anger, or is it gonna exacerbate it and make it worse? And so, you know, this this isn't really, I don't, I don't know. I I doubt that a lot of people listen to this are protesting on one side or the other. Um, most people that are listening to this are are dads that are or husbands that are wrestling with how they're feeling toward their wife or the emotions of dealing with a teenage daughter. And and how do we process that from a biblical leadership perspective, from a servanthood perspective, to say, you know, you know, honey, um, man, I know that you're you're feeling um sad or angry about some things that are going on at school or or or or on the on the athletic field, but let's analyze like what is this really telling us? Let's not just let our heart drive our emotions, not that the feeling of sadness or the feeling of frustration isn't real. It's just not entirely true based upon the circumstances of the situation that you're going through. And we oftentimes, as dads or as parents or as counselors or whatever, we reinforce the feelings, and I'm not sure that's right.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah. Well, well, let's go back to the Bible, right? Jesus showed feelings that says he went. 100%. He actually laughed too. I mean, he enjoyed. I, you know, that you picture Jesus hanging out with the disciples, and when when when they're both arguing about who's going to be on his right and who's gonna be on his left, I just picture Jesus like kind of like laughing at him, being like, You guys are just idiots. You know, I mean, like, I don't know that he would use that language, but that's kind of how I picture it. But it, I mean, in Proverbs, it even says, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. So if our hearts are deceitful, we have to guard it. And what are we guarding against? You know, think about what are we putting into our brains? What are we putting into our hearts? What inputs are we listening to? If all we're listening to is talk radio and we're watching the news and we're on Twitter and we're doing all the things, listening to all the crud going on around the country and the world. Like, no wonder we're angry.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah.

unknown 8:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

What is the news today? To me, it's just the opinion. You know, it's people's feelings and their opinions. It's that's all it is.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

And how how much how much news do you consume? I mean, legit, like you sit down and watch Fox News or uh you're probably not a CNN watcher, but like what is I mean, where what kind of news are you consuming and for what purpose?

SPEAKER_01 8:24

To be honest with you, I don't watch the news anymore. I don't, I don't watch any of them. I don't. The only thing I kind of watch is CNBC because it's a stock market. But beyond that, I really don't watch anything. And I don't, and it's actually been freeing in my life to not watch that stuff. So I get most of my information if something happens. And I learned this in during the riots of 2020. I go to X or Twitter. I mean, I saw, I remember watching CNN. Oh, peaceful protests. Well, cars and buildings were on fire behind them, and now I'm sitting there going, that doesn't look too peaceful. And then I went somehow I jumped on Twitter. I didn't even use it. I used it to follow Cubs tricks back in the day. That was it. And I realized real fast, I'm like, wow, they're showing everything actually actually happened on the street right in real time with people posting videos. I was like, maybe that's a better source to get some information from. So that's what led me over there. But, anyways, again, it goes back to why are we doing this podcast, in my opinion. Because at the end of the day, I think our news stations need to do a research on this, the Smith Munt app. Everybody should go Google that and do some research on it. Um, but basically allows propaganda to be used against the American people. Obama actually took it away when he was president, and it's still in place today. And you're wondering why it is still in place, it needs to be banned. Okay. Um, but the reason why I'm doing this podcast with you, Matt's because I believe people are starving for the truth. They want the truth, they want to find ways to get past the opinions and the feelings and get back to the logic of who are we supposed to be, how are we supposed to live.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

How do we do that?

SPEAKER_01 10:01

I mean, obviously, as a believer, it's get in the word.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Well, I mean, if you think of think about I'm I'm just gonna I'm just gonna I'm just gonna read. So for those out there that think the truth comes from, you know, we I'm a part of a workout group. We call them Oprah bombs, you know, the things that sound really good, but really uh uh un unfortunately are just false. Follow your heart. Um I'm I'm sure there's a ton of them, but follow, follow your heart, um, listen to your feelings. Uh these things, you know, try to achieve your dreams, and and I I just I challenge all of them because you read through and and I I read you Jeremiah 17, I just read you Proverbs 4, 23, Romans 13, 14. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think how to gratify the desires of the flesh. Goes on in James chapter 1, verses 14 and 15. But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desires and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full grown, gives birth to death. These verses, when we read through these things, it tells me, man, what I'm feeling, what I'm thinking in my brain at the moment that those things are happening, it it's probably not the right way to feel or the right way to think. And so I need to sit, I need to ponder, I need to think, uh, I need to ask God for clarity. I need to ask God for wisdom. I need to ask God to protect me from the evil spirit that's taking me down this road of anger that's unjustified. I need to um call my my buddies, text my text my the guys in my in our Bible study. I'm in a couple different Bible studies, I'm in a community group. Hey guys, this is what this is what's going on in my life. Like, am I where am I going wrong here? Let me confess this to you. Confession. How many, how many men listening to this are actually spending time daily confessing materialism, lust, unrighteous anger? And I would even argue that, you know, there is righteous anger, but the way that we respond, righteous anger, we we're responding unrighteously. We may be, we may be mad about certain things that are probably justified, but the way that we're handling them is our hearts are deceiving us. And so we have to guard our hearts the way Proverbs 4 says, by by reducing the amount of inputs that are untruthful or opinionated and filling them with truth. And that's where God's wisdom and God's clarity really comes in. And if if you if you claim to be a Christ follower, how much are you in your Bible?

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Yeah, totally. And it goes back to what we were just talking about. Like I shut off the news because I realized I was it was making me angry. I was letting my feelings get the back to me. You know what I'm saying? And I think obviously you can't the Smith Ball right if you go there or whatever. But the verse I I came across to talk about today was 1 John 3.20. I love this verse. If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts and He knows everything. Basically it's saying, hey, we need to check our hearts, you know, because we can feel guilty, we can feel unworthy, we can feel like failures. But then who does God say we are? Like, who's God in this to be? Are we forgiving if we're truly saved, if we truly surrendered our life to Christ, we're forgiven. I know for me, going through my divorce, it probably took me gosh. I mean, I actually did see a counselor eventually. About probably about six months when I went to that divorce, and the financial great financial crisis happened, and I mean it was like everything was falling apart at the time, the world and my life. Went and saw a counselor, a good Christian counselor, by the way. I thought it was so weird. I'm going there, I'm talking, he's talking, he's asking questions. I'm talking, he's asking questions. I'm like, this guy doesn't really say anything. I'm like, what am I paying for? But looking back, what he did was he asked the right questions, right? And those questions led me to understand that if I'm truly a believer in Christ, which I'll admit, I wasn't living my life that great for the Lord at that point in my life for sure. But if I was truly saved, then I was forgiving. And I think the hardest person I had to learn to forgive was actually myself. And I think a lot of men out there they want to carry stuff and Satan uses that to pull them down and pull them for being who they are supposed to be in Christ. And I hope the men that listen to this today, whatever it is in your past, whatever happened, it's in the past. Right? It goes back to that saying, I think I've said it a few times on this podcast. If we're anxious, we're living in the future. If we're depressed, we're living in the past. If we have joy, we're living in the present. And we need to be in the present, understanding this is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Amen. And and Josh, this is the kind of thing that we have to start planting this seed within our kids. And again, I I don't want to make this podcast only for people that are, you know, uh Christ followers. I mean, obviously we we we'd love to see more people come to know the Lord, but even if you've just saying, hey, I'm I'm not, that's not me, I'm not, at least wrestle with the idea that um our feelings take us to places that we don't really want to go. And or we don't even examine our feelings whatsoever and we just react. And so, you know, one of the things that is popular in our house is the dinner table. And we sit around the dinner table and we ask everybody how their day was, and you know, the kids aren't super talkative about some of these things. So I I'll ask my oldest daughter, I'll say, say, hey, how was how was school and how was track today, kiddo? And she'll be, she'll go, it was fine. And my very next question is what does fine mean? Because we we settle, we allow this idea of we're we're not gonna share, we're not gonna, you know, really dive in and talk. And I'm not expecting, you know, a super deep conversation every time, but it's the idea of draw something out of people. Don't just let them sit there and fester with an issue that may be very easy to talk about. They just no one just ever pulled it out of them. So we're we're willing to, uh, as dads, and when I say we're willing, I think we've just caved to the idea of surface level conversation is just okay. And it's it's okay all the time. And to a certain extent, service level's fine, but we we need to get deep. We need to ask hard questions, just like your counselor. Like he started asking the right questions. So sometimes, even though we don't want to ruffle feathers, we need to pull some things out of our kids, out of our wives that maybe they don't really want to talk about, but it's got to get on the table. Yeah. Because when when you hold it in, it breeds things like anger and resentment, and that leads to things like envy or envy uh and anger, and that leads to things like resentment. And once resentment sets in, it it's really tough to recover a relationship. And so I think about those things when when when you say I, you know, I went to counseling that so that the counselor could ask the right questions. I and again, this isn't a pro or con for counseling, but I think we can ask these questions at the dinner table.

unknown 17:16

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

I think we can ask these questions in a Bible study, in a group of friends, that we're not just talking about uh the latest Super Bowl, which by the way, that was a boring game, wasn't it? Oh my gosh. We're we're not just talking about you know the latest sporting event or work or things, you know, how's your kid doing in sport? Those are fine. That's not the way to grow deep relationships. It's not the way to uh develop um a a deep personal spiritual life um as we start to get into our mid-40s into 50s. I think I think we're hungry for that. I think we need that.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

So, Matt, why do you think I because 100 made really have dated they have significant others? They've actually just broke up with hers yesterday, two days ago. Um But it sounds like a lot of people's parents just don't have deep conversations with them. My question is why don't they? Why are parents so scared to talk to their kids?

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Okay, I think a couple reasons. Um, number one, I think dad's too preoccupied. Okay. I think uh number two, dad's afraid. Dad's afraid of uh 17-year-old girls' emotions. I think he's afraid of his spouse's emotions. Man, that's probably not gonna be a statement that goes over very well. But honestly, it's true. It's true. I I mean, Josh, I'm just gonna tell you unofficially, because I'm not a counselor whatsoever. I'm just a guy that's in a lot of relationships, deep relationships with people. I've probably counseled 10 to 12 men that have struggled in their marriages and gone, and unfortunately, most of them ended in divorce. And it was pretty much all because him and his wife did not communicate and talk about intentions and have hard conversations.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

It just shocks me. Like at some point, you cherished or loved this person. Like I'm sure they had conversations for hours when they first met.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

I mean, Josh, think about what's in uh what's what's perpetuating our culture. It's news, it's sports, it's sports gambling. Um, I would even argue sports gambling is the new pornography. Yeah, all right, it's occupying uh men's times. When you I mean, not only sports gambling, when you think about Bet 360 and FanDuel and uh DraftKings, I'm even talking about um fantasy, fantasy sports, and the amount of time and energy that goes into that. I watched, I watched, I I allowed my sons to do fantasy football this past fall with a couple of buddies. It it wasn't even for money, it was just for fun and the amount of time that they spent researching. I I think we're done. I don't even think I'm gonna allow it next year. I've never done fantasy football. I don't think I ever will. It is, I mean, are there some guys that can manage it? Possibly, but I it is crazy how many, and I think men are preoccupied. I think they're way too preoccupied and they're not leading well from the front. And I mean, it's not really a shot at people, it's a challenge. I hope men take this as a challenge going, you know what? I am gonna start asking some challenging questions.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Yeah. I just want to sit there and be like, guys, come on, let's go. You know, let's step up. Let's be the leaders again. Let's be the men that are last night. We played in the basement with our kids. It's way easier to just, after dinner, just go read a book or watch TV or whatever, but I know I have a certain amount of time with these kids here underneath my roof, and I'm not gonna miss it. I want to take full advantage of it as long as I have them here.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Are we gonna close out this podcast with a Mr. T quote of I pity the foo?

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Pity the foo. Yeah, yeah, pity the fool. Matt, obviously, this this is a topic that I think we could speak a lot longer on. Uh, but due to time today, we're gonna have to cut this short here. But man, how else can we challenge these guys in this in this realm in this topic?

SPEAKER_00 21:08

So we are trying to live our lives within the boundaries that God has set. What does that look like for us? I think at some point in time we have to analyze how much time that we are wasting and put the phone away, turn the TV off, take the TV out of the living room, spend time staring at your wife face to face with her hands in your hands, and ask some hard questions and let that drive the mentality of the household and say this home is going to be about building deep relationships. Because at the end of the day, I think that's what we're all striving for. Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, it's not about the number, it's about how deep you can go.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Yeah. And I would say that's a reflection of your faith. Right? Our faith should be kind of the same way, but just because you Say, hey Lord, I surrendered my life to you doesn't mean you're not sinful anymore, right? It's just hopefully you're taking the sin that is in your life and you're reflecting on it, saying, God, I sinned. I need help in these areas. And how can I turn from that sin? And what can I read and put into my body and my life that's going to help me turn towards towards Christ?

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Great words.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Another good podcaster, Matt.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Let's go. All right, buddy. Seize the day, Josh.

unknown 22:27

Thank you.