The Pain of Passing Heart-stones

Why does the Bible talk about the importance of a “broken spirit”, a broken heart? I wonder if it has something to do with the very necessary process revealed in Ezekiel 36 of replacing our heart of stone with a heart of flesh?

As I am thinking about this the idea of gallstones comes to mind. The intense pain caused by gallstones is because they are too big to pass out of the body freely and they get stuck in the exit channels. One of the ways available to doctors now is to use ultrasound to break up these stones into smaller pieces so the body can eliminate them.

Could this be a useful analogy to what God sometimes tries to do with our hearts of stone? Part of our transformation promised in this chapter is the removal of our stony hearts and the reception of new hearts of flesh. Maybe God uses some form of “ultrasound” to break our hearts so we will be more willing to let go of them in preparation to receiving new capacity hearts. Then we can experience the aliveness of having a heart that can feel, that can move, that is soft and warm and life-sharing.

But we cannot experience a new heart if we cannot let go of our hearts of stone. God promises that He can remove this heart of stone. He wants to do it far more than we want it because the real issue, as is repeatedly emphasized in this passage, is God's reputation. This whole arrangement of salvation is not primarily for our benefit, though that is a wonderful part of it, but is to clear the reputation and name of the Almighty Who has been terribly maligned and accused by His archenemy Satan. And to the extent that we have participated in the lies, deceptions and distortions of God in this conflict we need to be realigned and repaired and restored to our original function of accurate reflectors of God's true nature.

Part of the damage we have all experienced in this battle that involves far more than just us humans, is the resultant hardening of our hearts into stone. They still may look like hearts, they may have the shape of hearts, but, like petrified wood that sometimes looks so real, there is no life in them, no joy, no vital connection with the Head through the nervous system. And because our hearts are so well hidden from view deep inside us it becomes an extremely painful process to undergo the needed transplant.

A heart of stone can be a very heavy heart. A hard heart may produce very stiff-necked people. A stony heart often produces stony faces and even causes us to cast stones at others. The discovery of a (petrified) log in our eye obscuring our effectiveness in ministering to others may be indication of a petrified heart within. The many sharp slivers of lies embedded deeply in many of our memories are always due to heart damage and also contribute to our hardened condition. Just like the body sometimes forms very hard scar tissue around damaged areas, our hearts form hardness around the pain from the lies inflicted in us during times of trauma, neglect and abuse especially in our formative years.

I can see all of these symptoms in my own life. I sometimes tremble inside while I am in the middle of encouraging or giving spiritual counsel to another person when I think how hard my own heart must still be and how much healing I need myself. At those times I find myself crying out to God to use my voice to say what He wants to say to this person, because my wisdom and insights may very well be coming out distorted and maybe even empty due to the refractory nature of a petrified heart within me.

One of the most effective tools Satan uses in our experience to keep us from letting go of our petrified stony hearts is fear of pain. I have been told that passing gallstones is one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. I imagine the same is true of passing heart-stones as well. As the passion, love and new truth about God shatters our encrusted old hearts and begins to turn them into brokenness, we may draw back in terror and begin to desperately look for alternatives to this pain. Fear of pain is one of the strongest motivators in this world that controls and manipulates nearly every one of us.

But fear is also the primary method used by Satan and his agents in this world to maintain his dominance in our lives. Why do you think that nearly every single time a messenger from heaven appears to humans they have to start out by reminding us to “fear not”? Because fear itself blocks effectively hearing the voice of God and allowing Him access to our hearts. That is precisely why we see the rapid proliferation of fear in all the world around us today. Satan is using any and every means possible to lock down the whole world under his death-grip of fear and control.

Our enemies are not the only ones who employ this weapon against our souls. We call them terrorists because they want to keep us in constant, debilitating terror and fear. Sadly our own government and society have fallen to the temptation to respond in kind and try to counter with trying to our-terrorize its own people as well as its enemies. Churches have used this technique for centuries and we are fast returning to the horrors that the world lived under during the dark ages. All of this because we are buying into the lie that fear is a legitimate means of creating conformity.

But fear is the domain of Satan and his kingdom. God does not employ Satan's weapons to grow His attributes in our hearts. Fear leads to hardness of heart and hard hearts are not God's desire for any of us. He is in the business of counteracting the results of sin and replacing hardness with softness, death with life, darkness with light, fear with love, desperate loneliness and isolation with joy.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)