Hard hearted (closed or unyielding) people don’t experience God.
They experience only form and formalism.
Their heart must be open to feel and experience.
Fear, embraced pain and unbelief close the channels of life and faith.
Fear constricts. Pain speaks against. Unbelief repels.
Find a person who is cold, and I will show you someone hardened against hope.
Hardened against positive expectation.
Unless the heart opens, it will not receive.
The heart’s hardened soil in the Gospels heard the word but didn’t absorb it, didn’t take it in, couldn’t understand it.
What is the answer? A change of heart. An openness to hope.
I once had a great fear in my life that kept me from what I desired most.
In order to experience what I inwardly I longed for, I had to stop fearing… and start believing.
Is there an area in your heart that you need to open?
What are you seemingly unable to receive? Or unwilling to?
In the Bible Abraham against hope, believed in hope. (Rom. 4:18)
Meaning that against natural odds and personal logic,
he opened himself to expect the normally unbelievable and
receive something otherwise stereotypically inconceivable.
How? He opened His heart and began to hope.
He believed the Word that God spoke to Him.
He saw the picture God painted and refused to let go.
What are you hoping for?
Article by Jon Schauer
