Soft Hearts

Today, if you hear His voice: Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tried Me; they tried Me, though they saw My work. for forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, “It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.” So, I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest.

Psalm 95:7b-11

The ancient Israelites lived as slaves in Egypt, mere workers to build the monuments and infrastructure of an Egyptian dynasty bent on its own glory. But God delivered them and showed to them His great power and favor. Yet even then in the moment of testing the majority of the nation rebelled and did not believe God would do for them what they knew He could do for them. It was unbelief not only in His power but also in His trustworthiness and His intent.

A hard heart doubts both aspects of God — His ability and His compassion for us. Often our doubts lie more along the line of “If He will” rather than “If He is able.” Certainly presumptuous faith seeks to claim those things that God has not promised — and faith must always rest upon a promise of God, not upon a desire of our own hearts. The world’s definition of faith says that if we want something strongly enough and believe we will get it strongly enough then we will get it. But the biblical emphasis is always first upon knowing God’s promises and walking with Him in fellowship, and then asking. Asking in prayer does not good until we know His will and trust His heart, and between these two it is the trusting in His heart that endears us most to God.

Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7). By abiding in Him we learn to trust Him and by abiding in His Word we learn His promises and commands. And then with knowledge of these two we are free to ask because we will ask rightly.

David wrote, “Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:4–5). There is no trick here, no formula that is intended to get our selfish prayers answered. Delighting ourselves in God, committing our way to Him and trusting in Him, all of these re-shape our prayers, changing them from asking for our will to be done, to asking for His will to be done.

How do we retain softness of heart toward God? It is done in an attitude that trusts Him and His intentions. If we feel weighed down by our failings and sinfulness, then we should repent, confess, and forsake the sin, and trust in God’s promises to forgive and heal. God is quick and ready to bless repentant sinners, and no one should look at what He can do and decide that He will not do it for us as well.

All of the peace and joy that is available for any Christian is available for every Christian, if we will but trust Him. It is in our hearts that the battle is fought, whether we will believe in the good intentions of God toward us or not. “There is only one sin unto death. It is the sin of playing lightly with the beckoning of God.”* The Israelites were judged not because they doubted what they could do, but because they doubted what God could do — and that is always the issue before us.

There are always some unique aspects of God’s plan for each life, ways that He will use us that He will not use others. Softness of heart will not make us become something in the work of God that He never intended us to become. In Ephesians 4:7 says, “But to each of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” The meaning in the passage is that God did not call every Christian to be an evangelist, or a prophet, or a pastor-teacher. But this also applies to the unique burdens and challenges of each life — He does not entrust to everyone the identical burden, difficulty, and “thorn-in-the-flesh.” In a general sense all temptations are common to all, but that is because we each have His strength and help available to find a way out. But each life also has its own unique path, and will find the grace of God sufficient for it.

A soft heart is quick to obey, quick to confess, quick to listen, quick to trust, and quick to follow the leadership of Christ. We are never through repenting in life, rather repentance is an attitude we continue to hold, and in maintaining this attitude, our confidence in God’s goodness toward us is strengthened. Trust that the promises in Scripture of God’s good intentions toward those who believe Him also applies to you. Come with your faith, no matter how weak it is, no matter how great the burden of unbelief you also carry — come and trust and listen to His heart call and promise and lead.

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* Calvin Miller, The Unchained Soul (Bethany House, Minneapolis, 1995), p. 122.