The Softening of the Heart
Job 23:1-17
“For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me.”
(text v. 16)
Sometimes you will find yourself in some extreme circumstances, and it seems God is nowhere to be found. It’s not because God doesn’t love you, but it’s the only way God can work in you what you really need.
God uses troubles and trials to break us. We often cast the broken things aside as useless, but God cast the unbroken things aside as useless. How often we bewail and bemoan the sad fact of broken lives, but found lout later that only broken things are used by the Lord, and only after we are broken are we our very best for God.
God’s dealings with Job were not to punish him (as his friends accused), but to TRY, TEACH, and TENDERIZE him. The devil uses trouble to tempt us, but God uses trouble to tenderize us.
Troubles soften our heart (v. 16).
God doesn’t bless hard-hearted people. God uses one with a soft heart … a pliable heart… a tender heart. Many times in Scripture God says, “Harden not your heart” (Ps. 95:8).
Jesus upbraided His disciples for “their unbelief and hardness of heart” (Mark 16:14).
Paul exhorts us to be, “…kind one to another, tender?hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32).
How do you tenderize a piece of meat? Well years ago you did it by pounding on it. Trouble, adversity, trials, suffering all will make your heart soft if you don’t turn away from God during those times.
The man with a hard heart is often the one who has never suffered but always had it easy.
What did God use to soften Job’s heart?
I. DEPLETION IN THE FINANCES
Job was one of the richest men of his generation (1:3). He had it all. He was prosperous. He was wealthy. He was on easy street financially. So God gave Satan permission to destroy all of Job’s financial holdings (1:9-17).
A. God never gives Satan permission to do anything that doesn’t work for our perfection (Rom. 8:28).
Psalm 138:8 “The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me.”
God will let you experience what other people experience to make your heart soft towards their distress.
B. Job’s financial reversal gave him a soft heart towards others who had nothing.
When you experience poverty, you are more sympathetic towards others in poverty.
II. DEATH IN THE FAMILY (1:18-22).
Why would God let that happen? Because God wants to make Job’s heart soft (23:16).
A. Anyone who has had one of their children’s names in the obituary, will develop a soft heart for others who are going through the same thing
B. I have a soft spot in my heart for anyone who has lost their infant children.
III. DISEASE IN THE FLESH (2:4-10).
A. That is the reason why David Ring has a soft and compassionate heart.
Few individuals have felt the crushing blows that have besieged David Ring since birth. He was born to lose. On October 28, 1953, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, David was born with cerebral palsy. Orphaned at age 14, he was cast about from family to family, with no where to call home. He endured constant physical pain, humiliating public ridicule and constant discouragement. Yet in the face of these seemingly insurmountable obstacles, David emerged not victimized...but victorious! I have head him speak and say " I have Cerebral Palsy - What's your problem?”
B. Don’t ever think that the troubles you are going through are for nothing.
God may be using the troubles you are going through to soften your heart.
IV. DESERTION OF FRIENDS (19:14-19).
How do you feel when you see someone else deserted, hurt, neglected, and left alone? When you suffer loneliness, you’re heart is softened for others who are truly alone.
David Roever is an awesome picture of God's using difficulties to soften us. For years he viewed trials as something that affected only his external world, and any blow to what he owned or how he looked would discourage him and leave him feeling cheated. Today, David travels around the world, talking with people about how he discovered that no matter what happens to the outside, it's the internal life that trials really touch.
Dave Roever grew up in a loving, committed family in South Texas. The last thing on his mind was going to war. At the height of the Vietnam War, he received his draft notice. Having no desire to serve in the infantry, he joined the Navy and served as a river boat gunner in the elite Brown Water Black Beret in Vietnam.
Eight months into his tour of duty in Vietnam,
David went through rigorous training to become part of the ultra elite special forces team the Navy used on dangerous search-and-destroy missions. During a nighttime raid on an enemy stronghold, David experienced the greatest trial of his life. When he and his men were pinned down by enemy machine-gun fire, he pulled a phosphorus grenade from his belt and stood up to throw it. But as he pulled back his arm, a bullet hit the grenade, and it exploded next to his ear.
Lying on his side on the bank of a muddy river, he watched part of his face float by. His entire face and shoulder alternately smoldered and caught on fire as the phosphorus that had embedded itself in his body came into contact with the air. David knew that he was going to die, yet miraculously he didn't. He was pulled from the water by his fellow soldiers, flown directly to Saigon, and then taken to a waiting plane bound for Hawaii.
But David's problems were just beginning. When he first went into surgery -- the first of what would become dozens of operations -- the surgical team had a major problem during the operation. As they cut away tissue that had been burned or torn by the grenade, the phosphorus would hit the oxygen in the operating room and begin to ignite again! Several times the doctors and nurses ran out of the room, leaving him alone because they were afraid the oxygen used in surgery would explode! Incredibly, David survived the operation and was taken to a ward that held the most severe burn and injury cases from the war.
Lying on his bed, his head the size of a basketball, David knew he presented a grotesque picture. Although he had once been a handsome man, he knew he had nothing to offer his wife or anyone else because of his appearance. He felt more alone and more worthless than he had ever felt in his life. But David wasn't alone in his room. There was another man who had been wounded in Vietnam and was also a awful sight. He had lost an arm and a leg, and his face was badly torn and scarred. As David was recovering from surgery, this man's wife arrived from the States. When she walked into the room and took one look at her husband, she became nauseated. She took off her wedding ring, put it on the night-stand next to him, and said, "I'm so sorry, but there's no way I could live with you looking like that." And with that, she walked out the door. He could barely make any sounds through his torn throat and mouth, but the soldier wept and shook for hours. Two days later, he died. That woman's attitude represents in many respects the way the world views a victim of accident or injury. If a trial emotionally or physically scars someone or causes him to lose his attractiveness, the world says "Ugly is bad," and consequently, any value that person feels he has to others is drained away. For this poor wounded soldier, knowing that his wife saw no value in him was more terrible than the wounds he suffered. It blew away his last hope that someone, somewhere, could find worth in him because he knew how the world would perceive him.
David was all alone. Three days later, David's wife arrived. After watching what had happened with the other soldier, he had no idea what kind of reaction she would have toward him, and he dreaded her coming. His wife, a strong Christian, took one look at him, came over, and kissed him on the only place on his face that wasn't bandaged. In a gentle voice Brenda said, "Honey, I love you. I'll always love you. And I want you to know that whatever it takes, whatever the odds, we can make it together." She hugged him where she could to avoid disturbing his injuries and stayed with him for the next several days. Watching what had happened with the other man's wife and seeing his own wife's love for him gave David tremendous strength. More than that, her understanding and accepting him greatly reinforced his own relationship with the Lord.
In the weeks and months that followed, David's wounds slowly but steadily healed. It took dozens of operations and months of agonizing recovery, but today, miraculously, David can see and hear. On national television, I have heard David make an incredible statement: “I am twice the person I was before I went to Vietnam. For one thing, God has used my suffering to help me feel other people's pain and to have an incredible burden to reach people for Him. The Lord has let me have a worldwide, positive effect on people's lives because of what I went through. I wouldn't trade anything I've gone through for the benefits my trials have had in my life, on my family's life and on countless teenagers and adults I've had the opportunity to influence over the years.” David experienced a trial that no parents would wish on their children. Yet in spite of all the tragedy that surrounded him, God turned his troubled times into fruitful ones.
CONCLUSION:
Sometimes a wife has a husband with a hard heart. She may even pray that her husband’s heart be soften. Don’t be surprised if God doesn’t answer your prayers by sending great trouble into your husband’s life to make his heart soft.
It isn’t because God doesn’t love you that He allows trouble in your life. On the contrary, He loves you enough to make your heart soft.
He’s not trying to hurt you. He’s trying to soften you so you can help others (Read Heb. 2:18).
A state of suffering disposes persons to be compassionate, and those who endure the most afflictions are they who feel the most for others.
Sincerely yours but securely His,