Developing Calluses

I received a guitar for Christmas. So, I've been learning to play. I've discovered some interesting things about playing the guitar, it uses muscles in your hand and arms in ways I don't usually use them. That creates some cramping at times. I also learned that I don't have the dexterity with my left hand that I want or thought I had. I've got some work to do to make my left hand do something different from my right at the same time (I had a hard time playing the piano because of this.)

But one of the things I hadn't thought about was how painful the tips of my fingers would be from holding down on those thin metal strings. I'd have to stop after a while and rest my hand. I'd wait a day and try again, but it was still painful. I learned to play through the pain (or at least pick and strum because I'm not sure you could call what I was doing, playing!). In the first couple of weeks something happened, the fingertips on my left hand started developing hard calluses in response to the work they were doing, and the pain of playing diminished. It was getting easier to play because of the calluses.

Many of the calluses we develop not only on our fingers, but on our hands and our feet are there for our protection. They are created as a response to work that we do, to make it easier on our body. It's a defense mechanism.

But they create their own problems.

Calluses keep us from feeling.

As I played that guitar my fingers felt great, but as I typed on my computer or picked up stuff with my left hand, I didn't have the sensitivity to touch as I had before. I couldn't feel the same way. The calluses had created a barrier of protection.

The same can happen to our hearts.

"So cut away the thick calluses from your heart and stop being so willfully hardheaded." (Deut. 10:16, The Message)

Just like other parts of our anatomy, the heart creates its own protection as it has been hurt. (I'm not talking about the muscle, but the spiritual heart we have.) As a part of our self-preservation programming, we put up barriers to keep our heart from feeling so that we don't have to feel disappointment or even love. If we've ever been hurt at all in our lives then we have calluses on our hearts. And If we find ourselves refusing to allow the love of God in to all parts of our lives it's because we still have them.

I heard a word this weekend that is so true, impact. We can be impacted by the love of God only to the degree we allow. We hold the controls over this. We can make and keep the calluses on our hearts or we can cut them away. We have this control.

And God wants in...to all parts of our heart. Calluses there are not helpful at all. We need to feel.

My guitar has sat on it's stand much more than it has been played recently, but the calluses have gone away and the feeling has come back to my fingertips. It looks like I've got some more pain to go through as I start playing again. But it's good pain and good calluses. It's the calluses of my heart I have to watch out for...

...so I can feel..and let God in completely!

Peace ><>
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