Have you ever found yourself abnormally impatient, or more commonly short-tempered, or acting more arrogantly than normal and you’re unsure why? None of us are perfect, and we all have our less-than-proud moments in life that keep us close to the cross, but if you’ve noticed these tendencies increase for a prolonged period of time, chances are you’re suffering from a hardening heart.
A hardened heart is unmoved by things others would be compassionate about. It is a heart that is rebelling against God.
In Mark 8:17-18 Jesus accused his disciples of having hardened hearts when they did not believe or understand how Jesus could use a small batch of bread to feed a massive crowd, saying, “Have ye your heart yet hardened? Having eyes, see ye not? And having ears, hear ye not? And do ye not remember?”
A hard heart is characterized by an inability to perceive spiritually. When people are hardhearted toward God, they are spiritually blind and deaf—they can’t see spiritual truth or hear the Lord speak to them.
So how can we ensure our hearts remain “soft” and open to the things of God, and how can we regain closeness with Him after realizing our hearts have become hardened?
1. Repent
The first step might seem obvious, but it’s important: we need to repent. God appears to take hardened hearts very seriously throughout scripture, with the phrase “hardened or hardness of heart” mentioned more than 20 times in the Old and New Testaments.
This can be seen in Matthew 13:15, when Jesus says, “For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes— so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.” We only harm ourselves when we harden our hearts. And since we’re unable to hear fully from God or even receive healing when our hearts are hardened, we need to ask for forgiveness for turning away from Him and re-surrender our hearts before even beginning to move back towards the right direction.
2. Ask the Holy Spirit to Reveal the Source of Your Hardness
Have there been wrongful patterns of thinking, lies you’ve believed about yourself, others, or God, or alignment with activities or beliefs that misaligned with Him? Then, it’s time to infuse your mind and heart with revelatory truth obtained through studying the Word and time spent with Jesus.
It’s not enough to decide not to be “hard” anymore. We need to replace an inaction with an action. Kind of like replacing good food with junk food when starting a help regime.
Hardened hearts are often a sad consequence of bitterness and unforgiveness towards others or ourselves. Think of the last bitter or angry person you’ve interacted with. Were they kind and warm, or were they cold and dismissive? We can’t remain close to God and exhibit godly characteristics when carrying unforgiveness in our hearts. So often, we’re unforgiving towards ourselves or another without fully realizing it. After a time, the resentfulness just builds and takes over, affecting our ability to be open-hearted and loving because we’re so tired by our pain.
When dealing with a hardened heart in the past, I found that it helps to invoke a spirit of thankfulness. When focusing your thoughts and turning your affection to the Lord, meditating on all that he’s done for us and all He continues to be for us -our sources of strength, comfort, and guidance- it’s much easier to reignite the passion for Jesus that softened our hearts in the first place. If you’ve been feeling a bit hardened or ambivalent towards the Lord recently, consider setting aside times of worship and meditating on the love of God and His faithfulness throughout your life. It’s almost impossible to remain ambivalent or distant towards the Lord, when sincerely worshipping Him for how good He is.
3. Love and Serve Others
Another way to reignite a hardened heart is to intentionally love and serve others. I’ve found a direct correlation between seasons of hard-heartedness and my self-absorption. When living for ourselves, with lots of focus on what makes us happy and the concerns of the flesh, we tend to care and serve others less. When we do not love others, we ignore so many direct commands in the Bible, like 1 John 4:7, that keep us close to God. We are, of course, loved by God regardless of any action we fulfill or any strings attached. But when we’re in close communion with Him, that love is meant to outpour into the lives of people around us. How we love and care for others serves as a litmus test for the condition of our hearts. A hard heart doesn’t have the capacity to help and serve others. It’s too wrapped up in self.
If you feel an imbalance between the amount of time and energy you spend either in prayer or physically helping or serving people around you, consider whether this is a result of a hardened heart, and think about ways to begin sowing into the lives of others. This is a very effective way of reigniting your relationship with the Lord because without Him, we are nothing but a “clanging symbol,” according to 1 Corinthians 13:1. Serving and loving others forces us to connect with God because we really can’t affectively love others without being in relationship with Him.
God cares about the condition of our hearts above all else because we can’t be close to Him without an open and vulnerable heart. If you feel you’ve been hardened for a bit, or perhaps even years, it’s nothing to feel guilty about. God’s not mad at you. But He does want access to our whole heart because he knows the only true way to peace and joy is by being in constant, complete intimacy with Him. Let today be the beginning of your heart-softening process, and feel the relief and wholeness that comes when forgiving, letting our guard down, and loving fully again.
Originally published Wednesday, 31 July 2024.