Heart Tracks - Stay Soft

"Then the Lord gave me this message: 'O Israel, can I not do for you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand.' " Jeremiah 18:5-6

I heard the evangelist James Robison once say, "I know You're shaping me Lord, but could you please squeeze a little more softly? I ask Him to not squeeze hard, and He responds by telling me to stay soft." Staying soft before Him. Why is that so hard for us? Why are we prone to being more hard of heart than we are tenderhearted before Him? Why is it so hard to recognize how hardhearted we've become? The answer really comes down to our intimacy, or lack of it, with Him. With His Presence. With His heart.

I have lost count of the number of times I've heard people speak about how hard it is for them to keep regular times of prayer and meditating upon His Word. Of having times of real relational intimacy with Him. They cite busyness, distractions, obligations, and a myriad of other "things" to the mix. Almost never stated, but very present is that so often at root, we just don't want to. We cannot have a heart to heart intimacy with a God that we have no real heart to heart relationship with. We cannot stay soft before Him when we are rarely ever before Him. So we just get harder. No, we don't cease going to church, or our Bible studies, or other forms of fellowship. We may be around many of His people, but we're rarely around Him. The result is that we become so distant from Him that our hearts have become hardened, dare we say deadened, so that a few worship songs followed by a sermon barely make a dent. And it only gets worse for us as the pattern continues. The pattern then yields a walk that Larry Crabb said leads to being "more prone to maneuvering our way through life than abandoning ourselves to Him." We know much about Him, but we don't know Him.

The journey of hardheartedness is a long one. Examine the life of Lot. He chose to settle near Sodom, a totally wicked city. He started out near to it, in the end, he lived in its very center. He had walked with Abraham, who walked with God. He certainly knew much of Abraham's God, but that didn't save him from the pull on his heart from the spirit that controlled Sodom. His uncle Abraham stayed close to His God while Lot chose to stay close to that city. What do you and I choose to stay close to each day? Who and what do we choose to be intimate with?

Spiritual hardheartedness sets in the moment we take our eyes off of Christ. As soon as we do, whatever it is we focus on begins to seduce us, even if they are good things. We become more attuned to them, and ever less attuned to Him. And the response from the Father, the Potter, is to seek to shape us anew. When we remain soft before Him, this will be a joyous experience as we grow more and more in His image. Yet the hardness of our hearts will require Him to handle us with pressure that our flesh will hate. He will discipline us through circumstances, people, and many other ways to break through the hardness and bring us back to Him....softened. He squeezes hard, and we cry out that He be less so. He whispers to us, His children, "Stay soft." Have we? Are we?

Stay soft. Stay in His Presence. Keep your eyes fixed upon Jesus. Let Him shape you, us, day by day, moment by moment. He desires a masterpiece, and the only thing that can hinder the shaping is the absence of every hard piece of clay in His hands. There will be none so long as we stay in His hands, being shaped by His heart, as His heart shapes ours.

Blessings,
Pastor O