Heart of Flesh or Heart of Stone


Continuing on with my thoughts about the dangers of hard heartedness. I talked about the potential end result danger of hard heartedness in a previous posts about Cain and Abel and then expanded that with what happens if we allow too much time to pass in my post about the need for immediacy.


And now I have a question. How come we harden our hearts in the first place? Are we self protecting? Are we incapable of seeing the other person as a fellow human, also loved and created by God? Or are they an it, a mere object in my way? Or do we miss the grace in the moment that lofty callings like forgiveness, empathy and loving our enemies sneak up on us? Are we so intent on being right and of winning that we miss the gift of love? Or are we simply selfish? And what about idols in our heart? Our "if onlys", those demands that have convinced that "if only" this or that will happen, then all will be as it should be. The idols in our hearts - those things we can't live without and refuse to give up and take God's place in our lives - are hardening agents if ever there was one.


Defensive, rationalization, justification, excuse making, blaming, deflecting, building allies to our cause and religious pride are all things that contribute to our hearts becoming hardened and yet many people don't see this. Rather, we picture overt sin, ignoring conviction, and deliberate disobedience as the reason our hearts harden; and of course, that is true too, but it's the hardening that occurs over time, so slowly it's hardly noticed, that I'm talking about. And that's the kind that we need to guard against.


God makes several promises about helping us keep our hearts compliant and surrendered before Him. In Ezekial 36:25 - 27, God promises, "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes".


What a wonderful promise! When my heart hardens towards another person and I'm at a loss on how to love them the way He has asked me to, it is comforting to know that He will cleanse me and give me a heart of flesh.


But, then here is another thought. What if I do what God asks, and give up my demands, defenses, justifications etc, and with grace, confess and seek forgiveness and or willingly forgive them, soften my heart towards them and they use it against me? They hurt me? Won't my new heart of flesh be doubly wounded again? There is, after all, a reason we hold our hearts in self protection so dangerous that they become cemented in.


But, here again is another wonderful promise. "My flesh and my heart may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever". (Psalm 73:26) The translated word for "strength" in this passage is "boulder". And therein lies the promise - you don't have to harden our hearts when you understand that God Himself is the boulder of your heart. Our own measly attempts to self protect pale in comparison.








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hiking as a Metaphor for Marriage

Just over a year ago Jim and I took up hiking.  Prior to that, we did not do an awful lot together.  He liked to golf with his best friend, and I liked to read and study, and that's just the way things were.  We spent some time together going out for the occasional dinner but did not enjoy a hobby together, unless you count all the years of watching the kids play ball. After the kids became adults, and we no longer had the common activity of parenting to keep us connected, I recall hoping and praying that somehow we could find something, anything, to re-discover what drew us to each other in the first place.  Life can get like that. Careers, children, bills, responsibilities and exhaustion all conspiring together to make true intimate relationship scarce. So sans kids, he spent his free time on the golf course while I spent mine shopping, working,  reading or watching TV. I remember well when we started doing things together.  It was just after the Winter Olympics. One Saturday
Read more

The Brotherly Agreement.....of the Moravian Church

I'm presently reading The Forgotten Ways, (Hirsch, 2006) and the author made a comment about Count Zinzendorf and the Moravian church. He was referencing a spiritual renewal movement borne out of unity that occurred in 1727, and it piqued my interest enough that I went "googling" this morning. What I found was fascinating, at least to me! I have long wondered how the church of Christ on Earth, in all it's varied and wondrous forms, truly achieves unity and what would happen when that unity is actually achieved (and considering Jesus prayed for our unity His last night on Earth, it will indeed be achieved)! The story of the Moravians and Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf gives us a unique view into the possibilities. I'll reference some websites later, but first, some quick background. John Hus (1369 - July 6, 1415), was a Czech priest and philosopher who proclaimed his protest against untrue doctrines of the Roman Catholic church more than a century before Mart
Read more

What's in the Cup?

Image
The instructor stood on the stage, glass in hand. Holding the partially filled glass out in front of him, he looked expectedly at the audience. It's going to be one of those "glass half full/glass half empty" lessons, I thought. The instructor hit the glass. Water sloshed out. Ok, that was random, I thought. "How come the water came out of the glass?", the instructor asked. "Cause you hit it". "Outside forces impacted it". "It got hit". piped up various voices from the audience. The instructor repeated the action. Surprise, surprise, water sloshed out of the glass. Hope the church doesn't mind the wet carpet, I thought. "So, why did the water come out of the glass?", the instructor asked again. More voices chimed in.... a man's voice - "external forces making contact with the containment were sufficient to cause expulsion". Okay, I bet he's an engineer, I thought. A woman's voice, "someone a
Read more