God says do not harden your hearts – I have been meditating about this for a little while now in the hope of being able to understand in a practical way what this might look like and how it impacts our lives when it happens.
I began for some reason to think about muscles and how they work and are renewed. As I sat there I tensed the main muscle on my leg and kept it tense for a short while. As I did this I noticed that even though this was a voluntary movement it nevertheless rendered my muscle useless as in this state of tension nothing could enter nor exit from it. I also noticed that unless I relaxed it the muscle would cramp up and remain hard and in pain until treated. This led me to think about how so many of us go to see a physio or a masseuse in order to help us relax the tension of our muscles, which accumulates from daily use, in our bodies by pressing on them to encourage the flow of blood into them in order to renew the muscular tissue.
With this picture in mind please consider the following with me today. Muscles are tensed both through our voluntary choice as well as by just doing life. A muscle that remains tense is not able to function as it is designed to and in time if left hardened it will become injured thus disabling the person from being able to function in their daily lives. The muscle though injured still possesses within it the same full potential God gave it when he designed it and created it. All the injury does is handicap it from performing in the dimension it was made for. Furthermore muscles work best when they are relaxed, warm, and loose and it is a painful process both to soften, heal, and reactivate a muscle that has been shut down through injury.
It is also very important to understand that when a muscle is injured another part of the body is used to compensate for the absence of the muscle. This new part, though not designed to perform the same task is used to do so in order for the body to continue to function albeit not the way it was originally intended to do so. I believe with our hearts is very much the same way. Life happens to us and as it does we all inevitably hurt and become hurt. This hurt over time hardens our hearts leading them to shut down. With many of us, as with Adam within the Garden, we start using another part of us to compensate for the absence of this central part of our beings. This part is the mind where we are capable or creating illusional realities that convince us that if we are able to achieve certain things then we will experience the happiness and peace we all seek after. From here we also attempt to force a relationship with God though after a while all we end up doing is creating an illusional version of him which we are able to control through our performance.
Insisting on a life that begins within our minds will lead us to much frustration and disappointment which over time it will only enlarge the wounds and hardiness within our hearts. This is because like the muscles the only way for this hardness to be rubbed out is by allowing the only one that can to massage it out. His hands if you see with the right eyes will come in the form of adverse situations, difficult people, and uncomfortable circumstances. Yes they will be very painful and most definitely not pretty but if we remain present and still as we are told on Psalm 46:10, in time both our hearts and lives will become soft again so that we are once again able, as Psalm 46:10 once again says, to know that he is God…and that he is most certainly good!
Have a great and relaxing new year!
-pablo-
Photo by Rekha Garton
