Inside Out: A 40 Day Journey to Transforming Your Heartنموونە

Hard Heart --> Compassionate Heart

Hardened hearts are like callouses.  A callous can rarely feel anything. Part of its purpose is to protect the sensitive skin underneath from experiencing the constant pain of friction. A callous numbs hidden pain by creating a thick pad of dead skin cells. The thick pad isn't formed in one day. It's developed after repeated irritation on the skin.  Calluses are usually ignored or forgotten until they split open and get infected. The infection can spread to the bone or the blood.  If our blood gets infected, we can get blood poisoning or sepsis and die. Just like an infected callous, a hard heart infects our entire life.  It can destroy us and our relationships if we don't take care of it. 

One area we may be calloused in is the expectations and boundaries given to us in God's Word.  When God's commands rub us the wrong way, we can acquire a callused heart that is no longer sensitive to the ways of God. We may stop feeling convicted about areas the Bible clearly says are sin because we have allowed the world and its values to rub us long enough to callous our hearts. Ephesians 4:18-19 says, "They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity." Our hearts are enticed by the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life (1 John 2:15-17). We may callous our hearts by watching shows with explicit sensual content or looking at inappropriate pictures.  Or we may callous our hearts toward being good stewards of our finances by living above our means and being in debt. God says we should have no outstanding debt in Romans 13:8.  

Over time, even the church has grown calloused to specific topics in the Bible that Jesus addressed. One area that Jesus called out the religious leaders on was the area of divorce. Back in Jesus' time, the Jewish men thought it was permissible for them to divorce their wives for any and every reason.  This is the view of divorce in our country today.  We believe we can have any reason to end the covenant we made before God about our commitment to our spouse. 

 Jesus answered the religious officials with a shocking answer in Matthew 19:8-9. "He said to them, 'Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces your wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.'" The Jewish law allowed divorce because the people's hearts were hardened. This meant they were self-centered and unloving toward their spouse. This law was given to protect the women in Jewish society.  Jesus emphasized that God's law doesn't approve divorce or even require it where there is infidelity. Jesus reminded the religious leaders that God's intentions for marriage were for a man and women to live together in faithfulness and love for their lifetime. This means couples would need to grow in compassion and humility. We'd need to grow into being servants of one another and learn how to submit to one another. We'd need to listen, learn, and lean into our spouse's interests and not just our own. 

 We might become defensive and say, "But what about if they cheated on me? What if they are abusive? What if they are stuck in destructive addiction?" These are serious challenges, and even Jesus wanted individuals to be protected and not abused in marriages.  Yet, when we look at the top 10 reasons for divorce, these aren't always why people run to the courtroom. The number one reason people divorce is over money issues. The second is a lack of intimacy with each other. The third and fourth are infidelity and abuse respectfully, but then we have a lack of compatibility and personal appearance of the partner.  Addiction is seventh on the list.  The last three are: got married too early, got married for the wrong reasons, and lack of communication.  Most of these reasons are due to a hardness of heart, not because an individual is protecting themselves from abuse.  

Hard hearts lose a sense of compassion and empathy toward others.  When our hearts have friction with others, we begin to build walls to protect ourselves from emotional hurt.  We give up on working through the difficult areas of communication, conflict resolution, and value differences, because we don't want to be hurt again. Instead of compassionately pursuing reconciliation and restoration, becoming more of a listener and learner, we push them away. We avoid. We see their faults, and they disgust us. Unforgiveness creeps in. Bitterness gets rooted in our calloused hearts, and we start to justify our actions. "We bring out the worst in each other." "We are on two different paths." "We aren't compatible." "We aren't in love anymore." "We'd be better apart." The next thing we know, divorce papers are on the table. "Till death do us part" is no longer seen as a covenant but a statement that was said in the blissful moments of young love that can be done away with for any reason. 

The most important person to have compassion for is our spouse.  It is a daily choice to put on a compassionate heart when our hearts want to only think of ourselves and become callous to others' words and actions. What if we were to intentionally live out Colossians 3:12-14 in our marriages and friendships? It says, "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony."

When we allow bitterness, resentment, and hatred to enter into the cracks of our hearts, we are on the road to destruction. Our hardened hearts will play a part in ending relationships if we aren't willing to put on: compassion, kindness, humility, patience, forgiveness, and love. Calloused hearts require intense surgery. When we ask the Holy Spirit to empower us with these character traits, our hearts can grow compassion and love. It's not a promise that relationships will be reconciled. Still, no matter what the other person decides, we can know our hearts were filled with the hope of reconciliation and restoration and that we tried to live like Jesus by having hearts of compassion. 

Take a Moment:

• Are you at a place where you will allow the Great Surgeon to take your calloused heart and replace it with a heart of compassion? 

• Who do you need to have more compassion toward? Pray God will give you the qualities found in Colossians 3 so that if a relationship does end, you know you were living as much like Jesus as possible. 

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, I need You to take my calloused heart and turn it into a heart of compassion toward the people that have hurt me and are hard to love. Help me, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to be kind, humble, patient, forgiving, and loving. Help me to walk through the valleys of my relationships with You by my side. Grow my character in these trials. Protect me from bitterness, hatred, and unforgiveness. You were able to have compassion for sinners. Help me to do the same. Amen.