“And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.” (Ezekiel 36:26)

Hardening of the heart is a significant factor in heart disease which kills over 600k Americans each year. This hardening of the heart happens as the soft heart muscle actually hardens into bone.

RESEARCHERS DISCOVERED THAT THIS “TURN TO STONE” HARDENING OF OUR HEARTS IS MOST OFTEN STARTED FOLLOWING INJURY TO THE HEART ITSELF.

Sometimes these injuries are just from normal aging or high blood pressure. At other times the heart can be injured from conditions such as kidney disease, diabetes or from physical trauma to the chest.

One thing that the research revealed was that when a heart is injured the connective tissue cells known as fibroblasts begin to produce a protein called ENPP1 to aid in the healing of such wounds. The problem is that often these fibroblasts overproduce this healing protein and the cells become like osteoblasts which are cells that produce bone in the skeletal system.

Hardening of the heart can be an emotional problem as well.

When we are hurt or disappointed there is often a hardening of the heart expressed in phrases like “I will never put myself in that position again” or “I won’t risk that part of my heart again.” AND SO THE HARDENING OF THE HEART AND THE CALCIFICATION OF VULNERABILITY BEGINS. The more we experience this stiffening of the heart the less life flows through us. Pessimism, fear, and defensiveness become an every breath arrhythmia to our daily interactions.
Having a heart of stone is a spiritual problem as well. God diagnosed this happening to His people in Zechariah chapter 7: “They stubbornly turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing. They made their hearts as hard as stone…” (Zechariah 7:11-12)

Yet the Lord promises a cure to hard heartedness. Listen to His description in Ezekiel 36: And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. (Ezekiel 36:26)

God did this when He sent the TOP HEART SURGEON, His Son Jesus, to operate on the hearts of all hardened and hurting hearts. His secret…forgiveness. Forgiveness reduces the hardening of the heart. He gives it to us and asks us to give it to others.

FORGIVENESS KEEPS THE HEART TENDER Ephesian 4:32 says: Instead be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another just as God through Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32)

Prayer
Lord God, so often the hurt that we experience tends us to want to get hard and defend ourselves so that we might not risk being hurt again. And yet we realize that this hardening of the heart is something that is damaging for our relationships. Would You come to our hearts? Seek out those places where we are hurt, seek out those places where we have hardened our heart, and soften them. Do that through the forgiveness You gave to us, through Your Son Jesus, and help us to give that forgiveness to others so that our hearts might remain tender and our relationships right might remain thriving. We ask this in Jesus’ Name, Amen.