How's My Heart?

Ok, so I definitely believe that God is perfectly able to do things in my life in a certain way to grab my attention, but still I am caught off guard when He so obviously seeks to grab my attention. Yesterday I had an interaction with someone that totally convicted me of the fact that I've been calloused towards her, that I haven't really been looking at her through God's eyes, as He sees her, but rather through my very cloudy, self seeking eyes. Yesterday I caught a glimpse of the real person inside of the tough face that everyone sees. I saw a broken hurting child that God made.

Now, people that know me think that I'm a pretty nice person. I mean, I'm a good, homeschooling, foster care providing, Christian, stay at home mom. You know what though? My heart is getting hard. I'm allowing parts of it to stay soft, but only the parts I want to be. The rest has been getting thick and calloused and ugly.

So, then I open up the Daily Bread little book today, not having done that for a long time, and guess what the title for May 23 is? "Heart Disease" The author references Zechariah 7:8-14, where the children of Israel are asking God if He wants them to do the traditional mourning and fasting, and God says, basically, you know what? Whatever you've been doing lately, you've been doing for yourself, so skip it.

What I really desire, says God, is for you to have a soft heart. "Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other." So God tells them exactly what He wants, and they "refuse to pay attention... stopping up their ears." Yikes. Sounds a little too familiar to me!!! How many times have I felt prodded by God and plugged my ears?!? Ok, here's the scary part - so God says "When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen." Do I want that? Yikes!

Please God, help the lesson to stick this time. Please make my heart tender; make it like yours.