Soften my heart, O Lord, make it ever true. This is my cry and this is my song. If you’re like me, sometimes we can get to a place where we turn on the cruise control. Everything seems to be going great and then we catch a glimpse of our heart. A situation arises and we don’t like the way we handled it. It wasn’t a good thing. What happened? It was a hardened heart. How could this be? Easy, it was one of those things from a while back and now it is simply time to deal with it. Soften My Heart!

What do we do when we are faced with situations in our lives? How do we keep on walking when the circumstances tear at our hearts, maybe even crush us again? It doesn’t only happen once, but over and over again. How do we make it through? I believe we have one of three choices we can make. One that was easy for me to make was to run away in fear and hopefully I could run far enough to never have to deal with that situation again, but somehow it always came back even if it was in a different form. Another thing we can do is to simply harden our hearts to the situation. It is kind of like a soldier on the battlefield. He’s out there and he knows that killing is wrong but he also has to protect his country and his family and so he may choose to block it all out instead of allow the Lord to help him get through it. We can find ourselves hardening our hearts to the situation so that we can’t feel any emotions in it. It becomes a locked room in our heart and woe to the one who tries to help or touch it. This is how we know there is hardness inside, these places are untouchable and we end up hurting the ones we love. The other way to deal with situations is to simply face them with the Lord. We simply need to trust Him to bring us through. Will we feel any pain or fear? Most likely, but if we make it through, wrapped in His love, the whole situation strengthens us. If we get wounded, then we need to let His healing mend our heart. We won’t have to walk all the way around the mountain again.

I’ve come a long way in my journey with Him and it seems like there is a long way to go. I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be free. The more healed I get the freer I am to be me. It no longer matters what others think. It only matters what He thinks about me. As my heart gets softer, others feel safer to get closer. As we get closer, the walls come down and we are more real with each other. As we are more real with each other, community starts to form. We know each others weaknesses and we know each others strengths and we are okay with each other. The group becomes stronger because our strengths are multiplied and our weaknesses are diminished. We must come to a place of being vulnerable with others. I am not saying we do this with everyone. We need to use wisdom. Let the Lord guide you and remember Judas. The Lord let him stay close until the end to accomplish the Father’s plan. So it is with us. There will be Judas’ in our lives. They have every right to make the right choices, but for some reason they let the enemy use them. We all have choices and we do hurt others unintentionally sometimes. We are human and not robots. We get tired sometimes and things just go wrong. That’s why there is forgiveness, love, grace, and mercy. Let’s choose to forgive and let the Lord cover us. He’s the only One Who can protect us anyway.

• I woke up this morning, felt His hand on my heart,
• The pain was subsiding as His love poured in,
• Today is a new day, it’s a brand new start,
• No matter what happens, He’ll be with me again.

Soften our hearts, O lord. This is a word for the hour we live in. Lord, shower our hearts with Your love and change us through and through. Our nation and our world need Your love, help us be the vessels for Your love to flow to a dying and needy people. Let the distractions fall away from us so that we might see clearly the way You have marked for us to walk. Bring us all together as we begin to walk. Let our hands be linked together in love as we share Your love. You, O Lord are magnificent. Your glory knows no bounds.

Joseph James