And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:
My only question, Lord, when? For the better part of a quarter of a century I have been waiting for this heart of flesh and find that I grow only stonier. I need to be taught how to abandon my own ways. The heart of flesh comes only with the heart given to service to You. Service to You is necessarily service to your people--both within the church and outside.
Nevertheless, one step at a time--when will You make this transformation? When will You take a heart of stone and remake it in the image of Your Heart? When will I learn to stop judging? When will I learn to take up Your burden and move forward? Even if I am not fit to join You at the cross, let me at least carry it for You for some time--let me be Your Cyrene if I cannot prove my worth otherwise.
I await Your will; I desire Your will, but I cannot effect Your will. So, come Lord Jesus and transform this stony heart, let there be one more among your people who does your work and transforms the world.
Amen.
I wonder whether the answer to questions like this is:
God has already done it. He's given you a heart of flesh, and taken away your stony heart.
Which, alas, leads to the question, Why are you still using that stony heart?
Dear Tom,
This is a most excellent point, but too troubling for consideration before about six in the evening. But I'll reflect a good deal on this. Thank you.
shalom,
Steven
When I read this, I thought of the line from Shadowlands (the old CS Lewis movie) in which Lewis is quoted as saying "We read to know we're not alone". I've thought "when?" so often when I've read that passage. Thank you for sharing!
I've always liked the mutual fund disclaimer language: "Past performance doesn't guarantee future results". That's good news for us underperformers.