Silas
Beloved of All
I have read your prayer and feel the weight of your burden. The scriptures you have laid before the Lord are true and powerful. It is right to plead for a new heart, for only God can remove the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. Yet as you continue to intercede, I want to press upon you something from the Scripture that may echo what you already sense in your spirit.
You have described how this one has hardened her heart again and again, turning away from every word of counsel and cutting off all paths to reconciliation. Over time there has been a stubborn refusal to heed the voice of the Lord. In the Exodus account we meet a king who did the same. At first it is written that he himself hardened his heart. Plague after plague, he stiffened his neck. Then after many self-willed refusals, the language shifts: God hardened his heart. The Hebrew word there means God made firm or stiffened the disposition the man had already chosen. He did not create fresh evil but confirmed the ruler in the position he had taken. This is a sobering reality: when a person persistently hardens their heart, they can cross a line where God says, "Let them be fixed in their choice." It is dangerous to keep hardening the heart against the Spirit's call.
This does not mean you stop praying. But it means you plead with a holy urgency, knowing that today is the day of salvation. The Spirit will not always strive. So we ask that before such a final hardening sets in, light would break through the darkness. We pray that God would place new desires within her heart, not the fleeting longings of the flesh, but His own yearnings. We ask for true repentance, not the surface remorse that lifts as soon as trouble passes. You long for a deep work, the cutting away of the old and a birth from above. That is exactly what God must do, and He is able.
I also hear the ache of a heart that has been opened wide while love is shut off from the other side. That pain is real. Do not let the coldness of another narrow your own soul. You are not straitened in us; any constraint is in her own affections. Keep your heart unbound. Continue in mercy, because you have received mercy. Remember that it is God who works in you both to will and to do, and we can ask Him to work in her as well. But while you stand fast in the covenant as far as it depends on you, guard against making an idol even of a restored marriage. The chief love must be for God alone, and from that undivided place you entrust every outcome to Him.
I join you also in praying for that family member you mentioned. May she learn to fear the Lord all the day long and come to saving knowledge of the truth, so that your whole household becomes living testimonies of God's grace.
Let your prayer remain like the one in the garden: "Not my will, but Yours be done." Keep asking for wisdom. Keep fasting. Keep your own heart soft. Trust that even if a heart seems stiffened beyond reach, the One who raises the dead can do the impossible. Yet do not presume upon tomorrow. Today, while it is called today, pray that she would not harden her heart any longer. You have set before God the promise of a new heart and a new spirit. That is the miracle we ask. Commit her into the hands of the only Mediator, knowing salvation is found in no one else. And wait with hope and holy fear for the God who delights to show mercy.
You have described how this one has hardened her heart again and again, turning away from every word of counsel and cutting off all paths to reconciliation. Over time there has been a stubborn refusal to heed the voice of the Lord. In the Exodus account we meet a king who did the same. At first it is written that he himself hardened his heart. Plague after plague, he stiffened his neck. Then after many self-willed refusals, the language shifts: God hardened his heart. The Hebrew word there means God made firm or stiffened the disposition the man had already chosen. He did not create fresh evil but confirmed the ruler in the position he had taken. This is a sobering reality: when a person persistently hardens their heart, they can cross a line where God says, "Let them be fixed in their choice." It is dangerous to keep hardening the heart against the Spirit's call.
This does not mean you stop praying. But it means you plead with a holy urgency, knowing that today is the day of salvation. The Spirit will not always strive. So we ask that before such a final hardening sets in, light would break through the darkness. We pray that God would place new desires within her heart, not the fleeting longings of the flesh, but His own yearnings. We ask for true repentance, not the surface remorse that lifts as soon as trouble passes. You long for a deep work, the cutting away of the old and a birth from above. That is exactly what God must do, and He is able.
I also hear the ache of a heart that has been opened wide while love is shut off from the other side. That pain is real. Do not let the coldness of another narrow your own soul. You are not straitened in us; any constraint is in her own affections. Keep your heart unbound. Continue in mercy, because you have received mercy. Remember that it is God who works in you both to will and to do, and we can ask Him to work in her as well. But while you stand fast in the covenant as far as it depends on you, guard against making an idol even of a restored marriage. The chief love must be for God alone, and from that undivided place you entrust every outcome to Him.
I join you also in praying for that family member you mentioned. May she learn to fear the Lord all the day long and come to saving knowledge of the truth, so that your whole household becomes living testimonies of God's grace.
Let your prayer remain like the one in the garden: "Not my will, but Yours be done." Keep asking for wisdom. Keep fasting. Keep your own heart soft. Trust that even if a heart seems stiffened beyond reach, the One who raises the dead can do the impossible. Yet do not presume upon tomorrow. Today, while it is called today, pray that she would not harden her heart any longer. You have set before God the promise of a new heart and a new spirit. That is the miracle we ask. Commit her into the hands of the only Mediator, knowing salvation is found in no one else. And wait with hope and holy fear for the God who delights to show mercy.
