“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26

I started to play a steel stringed instrument when I was eleven years old. Up to that point I had played a flute in the concert band. The four stringed banjo seemed much more my style and besides, it was a hand-me-down from my older brother, which meant it was free. Eventually I moved on to the guitar, which over the years has been a wonderful instrument to explore and play.

Having played the steel stringed guitar for many years now I have developed healthy callouses on the tips of the fingers on my left hand for which I am extremely grateful. It is excruciating even to watch a beginning guitarist try to press down those steel strings, and I have trouble not wincing in sympathetic response to their pain.

Callouses came in handy when later, while taking a college biology class, I was asked to prick the end of one of the fingers on my left hand to draw blood for a microscope slide. The small lance didn’t even leave a mark. It just rested there on the end of my finger. It’s tough to penetrate something that has been developing for so long.

Callouses are the formation of a toughened layer of skin over a place of continued friction and irritation. For a guitar player they are a welcome relief to the pain caused by continually pressing down the strings. To one walking long distance in bare feet they are a welcome addition to the soles of the foot that insure less discomfort in the journey. They are one of the wonders of God’s design of our physical bodies and a great help in many instances.

Though callouses have been beneficial in some important aspects of my life, they have proven to be detrimental to others. There are other realms where callouses have not served me as well. Both in the emotional and spiritual realms callouses have tended to impair my ability to mature and grow as God intends. This impairment seems to manifest itself in particular ways. In the emotional realm, callouses can leave us disconnected from our own feelings and the feelings of others. Like our physical callouses, emotional callouses are formed by wounds, irritants and unpleasant emotional frictions encountered. Over time, our emotional defense mechanisms create a layer over these wounded and vulnerable places so we don’t have to feel the pain again.

This may have short-term benefit when we are engaged in processing our pain, but I believe that in the long term it prevents us from feeling deeply, which in turn, I believe, diminishes our ability to compassionately identify with the pain of others. I believe that though the removal of callouses may seem painful, the benefit is that it keeps us open and vulnerable in our relationships, which in turn leads to greater intimacy. It is the willingness to risk this painful process that provides so much more of an emotional connection with ourselves and with others. This offers great benefit in our human relationships for it opens us up to the possibility of the depth and closeness associated with intimacy.

In the spiritual realm, the same can be true. Whereas callouses formed upon our physical skin can reduce greater injury, callouses on our hearts can diminish our ability to connect with God. Like dry skin can often become hard and less penetrable, so also a dry heart can become hard and impenetrable. In our desire to protect our sensitive hearts from the wounds so often associated with love and rejection we can allow callouses to develop to avoid relational pain. Yet this avoidance and development of a calloused heart can also keep us from experiencing intimate relationship with God. In fact a calloused heart in the scriptures is associated with stubbornness, rebellion and pride. The psalmist says, “They close up their callous hearts, and their mouths speak with arrogance.” Psalm 17:10

The calloused heart is one less penetrable, less available and less sensitive to the promptings of God. If God chooses to speak in quiet whispers, a calloused heart will find it more difficult to hear and understand. The calloused heart is manifested in our spiritual deafness to the voice of God. Thus, the writer C.S. Lewis said this, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world…” It seems at times, when the heart is hard and calloused, only pain will awaken it to the voice of God. But possibly there is a better, more cooperative way of addressing a calloused heart.

As emotional callousness can be softened and healed, I believe this spiritual callousness can be overcome with the constant application of the salve of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has the ability to recondition our calloused hearts with the penetrating words and actions of God. It is as we apply this spiritually effective salve and let it penetrate deep into our hearts, that we are enabled once again to experience the openness and vulnerability that promote intimacy with God, and with others. Practices like listening prayer, confession, meditation upon the Scriptures and regular thanksgiving can assist in making us available to the soothing oil of the Holy Spirit that renews hard and calloused hearts.

I am still grateful for the appropriate callouses on my fingers, but I am even more grateful for a God who by His Spirit has penetrated with His love and grace the inappropriate callouses formed on my heart. He set an example by choosing to humble Himself, becoming open and vulnerable to humanity so that you and I might experience intimacy with Him.

As you consider your journey to greater intimacy with God and with others, what heart callouses might be impairing your growth and maturity? What practices might assist you in becoming more available to the softening and refreshing power of the Holy Spirit? My prayer is that each of us will discover a greater depth of relationship with God and with others as we allow Jesus to tend to our callouses and enable us to feel more deeply His compassion toward us and, in turn promote in us a more authentic compassion for others.
Here is another song to further encourage you as you attend to the Lord and receive the ministrations of His Holy Spirit.