Softness of Heart

So many times, we do things our way and not the Lord’s. We see things that trouble us, and we go diving in head first solving them in our own, so-called wisdom. When we do it that way though, things never turn out how they should. In each of us God has placed a purpose, His purpose.

He created in us a destiny that will bring Him honor and glory. He has given each of us gifts and talents to be used according to His plans and purposes. He has placed within each of us a soft heart towards certain situations. That softness is not to be ignored, denied or misplaced. God put that within us to help us realize our purpose, but many times we do not recognize it as such.

In Exodus 2:11-14, Moses was face to face with his eventual destiny in life. He did not recognize the burden placed upon his heart was eventually to be the call on his life. “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor.

He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” Moses then fled Egypt because Pharaoh heard of this incident and tried to kill him.

Moses, during this time, had since married and started his own family. Forty years has passed since the killing in Egypt and Moses was now 80 years old. The Lord then appears to him through a burning bush saying He is sending him to deliver the Hebrew people out of bondage. He however was not going to deliver them this time by murdering the Egyptians through his hands. He was going to deliver them through signs and wonders brought out by the Lord. He did indeed go, and followed the Lord’s command to him and the people were set free.

The soft spot in Moses’s heart was revealed to him forty years earlier for the Hebrew people. He wanted them free of the torment and bondage brought forth by the Egyptians. So, he killed a man to free one of his brethren. In Acts 7:25 we see why, “Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.”

Moses’s calling on his life was set by God before he was even born. His calling never changed despite him taking another man’s life. Moses though, because of his softness, took it into his own hands to fix the situation. Though he couldn’t kill everyone on his own because it would have been wrong and would have been about Moses and not God. When God later called Moses to go back, he went in the strength and power of God, and God received all the glory. The very thing that angered and hurt Moses’s heart was indeed the call on his life and his purpose, but he needed God to fulfill it His way.

Each of us has the softness of heart regarding something because God has designed us that way for a reason. We need to recognize those areas and seek the Lord for direction. We cannot just go on our own accord and strength because we will fail.

Each of us needs to be aware of what God has put in us and lean on Him for the direction we need to take. When we do it His way and in His timing, that is when we will go out with all the signs and wonders of God following.

What About You?

1. What areas do you feel God has given you a softness toward?

2. Think of ways you can allow God to use you in those areas that are guided by His hand.