Harden not your Hearts

“Harden not your hearts”
Hebrews 3:8


I am finding the phrase “harden not your hearts” to be a very moving meditation phrase. A heart is a soft vibrating organ. If it hardens, it can not function. I also think that the hardening of your heart is a gradual thing. I find this to be a process that we must mediate on. We can harden our hearts in many ways. Over the course of my life I have found at times a hardening of my heart towards mediative prayer. I would find myself making it through the day on a couple of Our Fathers and a Hail Mary or two. I would not want to turn my heart towards God. It is a process that would take several days or weeks, but then one day I would realize that I had become hardened and was not able to meditate. I needed to gradually exercise my heart to get it vibrating and back in the spirit of meditation. I have found my heart to have hardened in my relationships with friends, relatives or others. Over time you realize that you are spending less and less time in a particular relationship. You have hastened the hardening process by negative thoughts about a person. Before you are aware of it, you are not spending any time on the relationship. Your heart has become petrified in this area. Luckily, God has given us the ability to reverse this process at any time. I believe that you can actually feel that hardening of the heart when it takes place. You realize that you are not first and foremost a loving person. You have become blah or selfish or just slovenly lazy. It is a gradual process but one day it comes to you. You have hardened your heart and it is your fault. Your heart is love. Exercise it.