Has Your Heart Become Calloused?

Ever know you ought to do something, but just don’t feel like it?  The desire is not there.  You ought to encourage, but don’t.  You ought to give, but won’t.  You ought to change, but remain the same. I get that way sometimes and wonder if perhaps I’ve hardened my heart to the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

“For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” Matthew 13:15

When our hands become calloused, we are able to do work with less to no pain.  We can actually cut away some of the skin and not feel it.  The same is true with our hearts.  We become so conditioned to the world’s troubles we lose feeling for others.  We become so comfortable with our own security we cannot see the insecurity of others.  We are so consumed with our own needs, we cannot notice another’s.  We are so intune to our own thoughts, we cannot hear the despair of others.

Jesus spoke to his disciples in the above verse.  He was preaching to a crowd and some within the crowd were only there because of the miracles they’d seen Jesus perform.  Yet still, they could not see the Miracle before them.  Others, the leaders, only followed Jesus to gather information and trick him.  They really were not interested in what Jesus had to say.  They had no intentions of following Him; they’d calloused their hearts and made up their minds that they had all the answers.  Therefore they could not be healed–or saved.

I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to feel calloused toward truth the Lord wants to show me.  I want to be so sensitive to God’s voice that I not only hear Him whisper, but discern a pinprick from the Holy Spirit upon my heart.
How about you?  Are your eyes closed to the truth?  Have you turned a deaf ear to His teachings?  Is there someone in your life with whom you need to reconcile?  What holds you back?  Is there some temptation you are unwilling to resist?  Will you turn it over to the Lord now and let Him heal you? 
PRAYER:  O LORD, for those who find these words touching them today, I pray Your grace abounds.  Let them accept the mercy You give.  Give them strength, and wisdom and discernment and let them live abundantly in Your goodness.
© Hariette Petersen, SelahV Today, 2011