Spongy Heartsfeatured

How’s your heart?  As members of the human race, we all suffer from a chronic heart condition – a hard heart.  Genesis 6:5 tells us “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” Ever since Adam and Eve, we have all been infected with the desire to crown ourselves as king or queen of our lives. The problem is we are not qualified for that job.  Proverbs 28:14 tells us about the outcome: “Blessed is the one who always trembles before God, but whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble.”

I remember my mother occasionally telling me that I was behaving like a “hard-hearted Hannah.” She was not wrong then, and even now the description fits all too often! How do I overcome this disease? Because of its chronic nature, treatment has to be a lifelong process.

Fortunately, our Abba Father has promised to provide us with a heart of flesh instead a hard, old rock.  Ezekiel 36:26-28 says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” 

Stone is not easily softened.  Over eons, the wind and rain transform them, but God fortunately has a swifter process for our rock-like hearts. God transforms our stony hearts into ones that are soft and tender through the work of his Holy Spirit.  I like to think of this process as being transformed from a stone into a sponge. 

Stones are dense and not very permeable to water. Sponges, on the other hand, readily absorb water. Sponges are full of holes. Those holes enable the water to fill the sponge. I have found that God has needed to punch a few holes in my heart over the years to soften it. Consequences of sin often open our eyes to our heart condition. As we repent of those sins, God’s mercy and grace begins to poke holes in our hearts.

None of us is immune to difficult circumstances that are not of our own making.  Nothing is wasted in God’s economy and he uses these circumstances to gently poke a few more holes.  Jesus’ brother James tell us, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Mature and complete Christians have spongy hearts!

Spongy hearts readily absorb the source of our spiritual well-being – Christ’s living water. “Jesus said, ‘whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life’” (John 4:14). Christ’s living water is designed to not only fills our heart but spill over into the lives of others. The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 3:3, “You show that you are a letter from Christ…written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”  God has included each of us in the life cycle of nourishing hearts that are being transformed from to stone to sponge.

The good news is that you don’t have to be perfectly spongy to qualify!  My heart still has some rock-hard places, but it is spongier than it used to be. 

This painting “Holy Heart” may look a little gory, but I used the red to remind me that Christ’s cure for my heart disease came at a price. Let’s pray for God to continue to transform our hearts, making them spongier each day. 

David’s words in Psalm 51:10,17 are a wonderful way to start that prayer.

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

“My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”