I spend a lot of time on the road. The Tarmac veins of the North get a lot of my time, and I've learnt to make the most of that time.
Often I will just drive and preach. I will preach at myself, preach at the fields, at the unsuspecting people in the passing cars, at the sun, at the rabbits who run under my car, flirting with death. I will preach to whoever and whatever. I've learnt that God always puts new ideas, dreams and thoughts in my mind and I feel that unless I speak them out they may never be given the time they deserve. I shout, I preach to no one with the same high intensity, the same passion and same conviction as I would if I was preaching to a room full of people, not because I'm mad, but because I believe God always deserves my best. Sometimes I will pull over and record points into my phone because my memory fails me. You know, I hear... I forget.
Other times I will sit and say nothing. I will go for journey after journey and say nothing. I won't speak. I won't have the radio on, or my iPod or anything. I sit, and I listen. For someone who talks a lot i find it strangely like home to be quiet. It's in these moments that God pours these ideas into my heart and it's from there that I will open my mouth and speak.
And yesterday I had one of these moments were I said nothing. I was meant to be going through the notes of my preach for that evening but found myself quietly sat when this thought came into my head. "Thick skin and a soft heart." I'm convinced I've never heard this saying before, but it's truth for my life struck me really hard.
I took it to our youth meeting and shared it first with the leaders and then with some of the youth proclaiming I would write a blog about this notion. Which I guess is where we find me now. Your word is your bond right, you can't say you will do something then not, so I got up early on a Saturday morning and started writing.
I believe we live in a world that wants us to have soft skin and a hard heart. A weak exterior and a tough interior. A shell that is weak and hurting, beaten and bruised and a heart that is closed off, selfish, untrusting, cautious, full of every hurt we have ever been dealt. We live in a world where our heart is too often manipulated by others, wrecked by emotion and riddled with jealously and un forgiveness. We capture moments of mess, grief and hurt like photographs and stick them to the walls of our heart, creating a shell of anger and doubt. We attempt to pick up the fragments of our broken hearts and stick them together in a padded box labelling them with a 'caution' 'fragile' 'easily broken' sticker and then scribble "Do not open" on the outside. We SHOUT so much negativity and low self worth over our lives that it becomes self harm of the highest order. We self abuse and believe lies and dress ourselves in sadness.
I believe that as a Christian we are called to have thick skin but a soft heart. The thick skin is necessary and in fact desperately vital. People will hurt us, let us down, disappoint us, offend us, misunderstand us, misinterpret us, desert us, abuse us and manipulate us. That is sadly the way of our fallen culture that comes from living in a sin stained and fallen world.
People that we thought would stand with us, will leave. People who always built us up will tear us down. Comments, rumours, presumptions will fly at us and we need to develop think skin in order to let these things bounce off us.
The bible talks about guarding your heart in Proverbs 4:23.
"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."If we aren't careful, and don't create a thick shell to ultimately protect our heart then all these hurts and trials will pierce our skin and go straight into our hearts and will begin to eat away at everything we do. Instead of bouncing off us they will consume us. They will make us question, they will fill our heads with insecurities and comparison and completely distracted us from living the life that God has planned for us. We will spend all our time looking at other people and what they have and live blinded from all the unique gifting and potential God has given us.
In Matthew 10:14 Jesus tells his disciples:
"If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet."
At this time Jesus is laying out exactly the cost of being a disciple and the persecution and trial that they will face for his sake. I love the image of shaking the dust from their sandals and moving on. In other words, don't let it go to your heart. Have nothing else to do with them but don't you dare let it get in the way of what you have been called to do. Don't let it rob you of the adventure and the life changing, soul winning mission you have embarked on.
This is why we need to develop a thick skin so as we can preserve our soft heart. A heart that is open to God, open to hearing his word and obeying it. A heart that isn't fearful or bitter. A heart that will speak faith into situations and in to others. A heart that has love at its core. A heart that has forgiveness, grace and mercy flowing from it. A heart of compassion, not of comparison. A heart of hope. A heart of joy. A heart of reason and understanding that isn't reaction heavy.
If we are unwilling to get over embarrassment, get over offence, get over hurt, rumours, un forgiveness and bitterness we are at great danger of making our hearts hard, and therefore in great danger of tripping up and walking away from all that God has given us.
Ephesians 4: 18-24 sums up better than I ever could this whole thing. The chain reaction from a hard heart to walking away from God. But it also gives a strong reminder that this is not the way of life God has for us.
"Be made a new in the attitudes of your mind."
"18They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
20That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."
Be on your guard today. Refuse to let any distraction reach your heart. Remind yourself of who you are in Christ, choose to position yourself there and cloth yourself in this.
Be safe.
Thick skin soft heart, ye.
It's really not as complicated as we make out.
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