June 8: A Heart of Flesh
Drinking can make a heart hard. Maybe you’ve felt it.
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
God speaks through Ezekiel to people in exile. They’d turned away from Him again and again. Their hearts had grown hard. And God makes a promise: I will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
A heart of stone doesn’t feel much. It doesn’t break, but it doesn’t love either. Drinking can do that over time. You stop feeling the hurt you cause. You stop feeling much of anything except the craving. You build walls to protect yourself, and they turn to stone.
Recovery softens things. That’s not always comfortable. As your heart becomes flesh again, you start to feel the things you couldn’t feel before. Guilt for what you did. Love for the people you hurt. Grief for lost years. Joy in small things.
That’s a sign that God is keeping His promise. A heart of flesh can hurt. It can also love.
Step Six is where many people start to notice this. You become willing to let God take away the hard defects. Coldness. Indifference. A habit of shutting people out. In their place, He gives you something softer. More able to care.
You can’t make this happen by willpower. Notice who’s doing the work in this verse. I will give. I will put. I will take away. God is the one acting.
If you use the Steps & Scripture app, the daily check-in can help you notice small changes in how you feel from day to day. However you track it, pay attention. A softer heart is a sign of God at work.
Be gentle with yourself as the feelings come back.
One thing today
Write down one way your heart has softened since you stopped drinking. Something you feel now that you didn’t before. Thank God for it.
A prayer
God, my heart got hard. Take away the stone. Give me a heart of flesh, even if it hurts sometimes. I want to love again. Do what You promised. Amen.
Read about Step Six.
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