Job 23:16

God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me.

God the softener of the heart

This is not a Jewish idea. The dispensation of Moses was a religious state, in which the harder features of the Divine countenance were brought to light, and by which the severer characteristics of the Divine nature were developed before the people, rather than their opposites. The ideas with which the dispensation familiarised their minds were more especially those of justice, judgment, retribution, and punishment. To speak of the softening of the heart, and to ascribe, as Job doth, the process and the operations by which it is softened unto God, must project our thoughts to other days which the “prophets and kings” have “desired to see,” but, except by faith, “did not see them.” It directs us to “the days of the Son of Man”; it leads us to think of the humanity of God, with all its consequent and concurrent tendernesses towards our own. Hardness of heart or spiritual insensibility is no isolated evil. It hath a numerous progeny. Hardness of heart, let it take what shape it will, is something to be prayed against. There is a moral ossification of the heart, as well as a physical The Pharisees of our Lord’s day were thus morally diseased. These hard bones, these intractable sinews of a perverse disposition and a rebellious will, these “horns of the ungodly,” must be broken, dissolved, ground to powder. Let it not be supposed that this softness of heart can be any reproach to us, or is in any way derogatory to moral and intellectual manliness. Our nature cannot be too tender so long as it is not weak. The sensibility of woman, joined with the intellect of man, would not render us too sensitive. Piety is softness of heart, tenderness of affection, sensitiveness of conscience to Godward. But how does God make the heart soft? He doth it by the influence of His Holy Spirit. This is so obvious as to need no proof. But the Spirit useth different means, and operateth upon us in a variety of ways, not only through the particular channels which He hath ordained, but in all manner of ways. Some other methods may be mentioned.

1. God maketh the heart soft by the influence upon us of the natural world.

2. By His Holy Word. This is an agency whereby the Spirit of God more peculiarly worketh upon the soul; and the natural objects to which the Word is compared show how softening its influences are. Dew; showers; small rain; snow; honey out of a rock; all which similitudes bespeak its tender, melting, mollifying power.

3. By the discipline of life. Trouble is a mighty mollifier of the heart. Trouble prepareth us for the sympathies of Nature and the consolations of God’s Word. Next to the Lord Jesus it is humanity’s best friend, and the more as it is no man’s flatterer. (Alfred Bowen Evans.)

“God maketh my heart soft”

Prosperity is often a curse, adversity is often a blessing. Observe the advantages of affliction. Confine attention to the softening of the heart.

1. The Scriptures speak of the hardness of the heart as the cause of impenitence and unbelief. Suppose that you were offered, on the one hand, temporal prosperity with a stony heart, or temporal prosperity with a new and softened heart, what would be your choice? If you are in adversity it may be that God saw prosperity to be dangerous for you. It is the Almighty that troubleth you. Thank Him for having troubled you. Pray Him to soften your heart wholly.

2. Since God certainly designs affliction for your profit, have a care that you do profit by it.

3. How are we to profit by affliction? To this end, we must repent us truly of our sins past, and resolve, by God’s grace, to abandon them. Our good resolution must not be impulsive and evanescent, it must be deliberate and decided, in order that it may be permanent. God has promised to help us, and He alone can give us the strength to succeed; but He requires a concurrent will. If you would profit by affliction, you must be “instant in prayer,” and diligent in the study of God’s Word. Learn, then, to look at affliction in the true light, and from a Christian point of view. It is designed by God to make your heart soft. (James Mackay, B. D.).