I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (NIV)

I’m not a big toast person. My roommate in college used to tease me that I don’t like toast, I like heated bread. Her bread would actually be brown and crunchy after heating it in the cafeteria toaster, while mine would be light colored and barely crisp. No matter how toasty you get your bread, you know what’s the worst when making toast? When the butter is cold and you go to spread it, but it won’t spread evenly. It remains a solid clump in the middle or possibly tears your piece of bread. Such a bummer. Cold butter can’t do its job for toast, which is to spread evenly across its surface and add extra richness and deliciousness to a piece of otherwise plain bread.

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You know what else doesn’t work the way it should when cold? Clay. Sometimes a cold, hard block of clay, depending on the type, cannot be made into a beautiful bowl or vase unless it is first warmed and softened. The potter must do this step. The clay cannot warm and soften itself. In the potter’s hands the clay softens and can be formed into what it should become.

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How often are we like cold butter or clay in the hands of our Creator? We aren’t open to what God has for us. We can be distracted with busyness, indifferent to the needs around us, even hostile towards others or angry at the path God has us on. One ACF attender, while on the prayer walk last spring, simply prayed: “Soften my stubborn heart.” The opposite of soft, of course, is hard, and a hard heart is not one that can easily obey God.  

In the book of Ezekiel, the Israelites had strayed far away from the One True God. Their hearts were hard as they rebelled and disobeyed. Yet the prophet Ezekiel offered them hope. In chapter 36 we read the words of God for the people, as delivered by Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (v. 26). Now this is figurative language; our physical hearts, of course, remain in our bodies. But God does transformational work in our lives when we relinquish our old hearts to him for new ones.  

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Stone is inflexible, cold, and impenetrable. Our hearts can lead us astray, can make us self-focused instead of others-focused, and leave us stubborn and unyielding to God’s will. But God, the Potter, takes us, the clay, and by his Spirit makes something new and alive, open and warm, vulnerable but also strong. We need our hearts to be soft to become more and more like Jesus, to live into the purpose for which we were created. Jesus’ heart was completely aligned with his Father’s; he lived to do his Father’s will. His heart was not selfish or stubborn, lazy or anxious. He was willing to have his heart be molded by God. Similarly, the writer of our sticky note acknowledged their need for God to do some work on their “stubborn heart.”

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Where do you need God to warm up your heart? Is it in a relationship?  A calling on your life you are trying to ignore? Today, let God mold and form you just a little more as you yield to him.

Father God, as the song goes “You are the Potter, and I am the clay. Mold me and make me, this is what I pray. Change my heart, Oh God; make it ever true. Change my heart, Oh God; may I be like you.” Lord, we get stuck in our ways, unwilling to let go of certain things that may no longer serve us. We want the path of least resistance, which is often not your path for us. Help us to let go of our pride and selfishness and instead be open to what you have for us each day. In Jesus’ mighty name, amen.