Soft hearts

I was struck by the Ps@lm 95:8-11 this morning.

Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof,
though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation
and said,
"They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways."
Therefore I swore in my wrath,
"They shall not enter into my rest."

In recent readings through the Gosp*l of Mark, I was also struck by the hardness of heart of some of the Ph@risees and reli*gious leaders. Ironically, they should have had the softest hearts, as they should have known the most about G*d and His ways. It's a reminder that just knowing the Scrip*tures (or perhaps, even more, different people's proposed interpretations of the Scrip*tures) doesn't guarantee having a soft heart toward the projects & voice of G*d. In fact, knowledge can itself bring pride and arrogance, rather than having the simple, yet obedient heart of someone like Mary.

It seems important to pray for soft hearts for ourselves, our children, ch*rches, as well as those whom we're in contact with, but aren't following Chr*st yet. I know several people who have grown up in Xian homes & attended solid ch&rches as children, yet have given that up as adults. My prayer for them increasingly is that G*d would soften their hearts.

As we seek to raise 3 children, I pr@y this for them as well. As much as we try to influence them to become G*d-lovers and G*d-followers, only through the power of the Spirit will their hearts be softened.

I've recently been reading Tedd Tripp's "Shepherding a Child's Heart." It's a very helpful book on parenting. In his chapter "Getting to the Heart of Behavior," he writes:

The heart determines behavior. What you say and do expresses the orientation of the heart...Behavior is not the basic issue. The basic issue is always what is going on in the heart.

A change in behavior that does not stem from a change in heart is not commendable; it is condemnable. Is it not the hypocrisy that Jesus condemned in the Pharisees? In Matthew 15, Jesus denounces the Pharisees who honored him with their lips while their hearts were far from him. Jesus censures them as people who wash the outside of the cup while the inside is still unclean. Yet this is what we often do in childrearing. We demand changed behavior and never address the heart that drives behavior. (3-4)