If today you hear His voice, harden not your heart. (ps.95:7&8)
It’s hard to avoid, the hardening of one’s heart. One has to guard against it at all times. This old world rubs us raw, and we either shrink away or allow the callous to form.
Our hearts can become hardened through sheer overload. We feel helpless, we shut off that part of our consciousness that hurts when we think of the horrors of the world. Because we do not think we can make a difference, we do not think at all. It’s defensive.
But it’s also wrong.
Jesus was not a fan of the hard heart. He sought at every opportunity to pummel and buffet the crusty clods of His disciples’ hearts into something malleable and soft. He watered it with His tears and broke it up with His actions, until He had something He could work with.
Painful stuff, that tilling of hardened clay. But the end result is a vessel capable of pouring out His love and hope to others. When we feel that pang of horror at the harsh reality of this world, let us not turn away, but allow the Lord to bring forth the fruit of it. As with childbirth, the pangs may be telling us it’s time to push…time to labor so that someone else may have life.
It’s been hard at times to read the accounts of the bloggers over in the Dominican Republic this week, writing about the work there on behalf of some of the neediest of the needy. There have been times that it would have been easier to just close the window and watch youtube instead. Shrink away, put up a wall…harden. Anesthetise the pang.
But if you have read any of the accounts, you know that there is a way to help. A soft heart doesn’t have to throb with pain…it finds peace through doing what it was created to do: pouring out onto others.
Perhaps you have meant to sponsor a child for a while now, and have simply not gotten around to it. Perhaps you are only right now feeling twinges. Maybe you just need a little more information. Whatever the case, may I suggest that it might be the Lord’s voice you are hearing at this moment?
1 John 3:17-18
If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
Loving with actions and in truth. Whatever action He is calling you to, please don’t put it off. Don’t let your heart harden because the enemy is whispering the lie that you can’t make a difference. You can. And your labor…your efforts…will give life to someone else. What greater joy is there?
