We don't want to crash and burn, we don't want to spectacularly implode, we watch out for the outright denials. But the Bible seems to suggest that a gradual drift or hardening is a bigger danger to us than simply waking up one morning and abandoning our faith.
To talk about it in heart terms the biggest danger isn't that one day we will just stop loving it is rather that the gradual callusing of our heart will lead us to a day when we realise we just don't love anymore and haven't for some time.
Calluses build up on the hands through hard work, spend a couple of weeks working in a garden, or laying bricks, or shovelling sand and you'll develop hard, thick layers of skin that can take punishment without pain, work without blistering and weeping. I'm increasingly aware that can happen to my heart.
Rejections, failures, mistakes, people leaving church, people moving away, people drifting away, friendships that just meander, bereavement, loss can all lead to heart calluses developing. And over time almost without you realising it you don't love people anymore - you almost can't, you heart is covered with thick protective pads where the pain has rubbed and created scar tissue. And the biggest danger of it all is that it is so gradual, so creeping, so unseen that we will rarely know it has happened until it has.
We won't realise because we can continue with the outward actions, we can still be in church, still be leading worship, even still be preaching, all the while our hearts are callusing and hardening inside of us.
But God calls us to taste and see that he is good, to rest in him and his character and his love and redemption. God gives us a new heart and continues working by his spirit removing the calluses, flaking off the calcification, making it soft. That is not an easy or painless process, but it is a lifelong process.
How is your heart?
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