Heart Tenderizer

I love cooking.  I always have and I really still do.  When I was little I was also fascinated by all of the tools in the kitchen.  I distinctly remember one time when my daddy was cooking and I was rummaging through the drawer with all of the various kitchen utensils.  I remember I picked up one that looked like a little spikey wooden hammer and looked up at Daddy and said, "Daddy, what is this for?"  He smiled and tapped it against his hand thoughtfully, "This is for making meat taste better."  That puzzled me.  How could a weird hammer make meat taste better?  Daddy told me that when meat was tender, it was tastier.  He explained that you had to beat the meat up to make that happen.

The other day, I heard my pastor speak on tenderheartedness in the Christian walk.  This got me thinking about this memory and another conversation I had with my dad about meat.  He once told me that the younger an animal is, the more tender and tasty their meat is.  This makes me sad, but, of course, is nonetheless true. :)

In 1 Peter 3:8, all Christians are called to be tenderhearted.  But what does that really mean?  Well, we could go to Websters which defines tenderheartedness as "easily moved to love, pity, or sorrow; compassionate or impressionable".  Okay, fine.  Sounds good to us, right?  But in original biblical Greek context, we find that it means all of this plus a gutsy type of sympathy and empathy for others.  A Christ-like view of others.  How does this happen?

I think oftentimes our hearts are tenderized in a very similar manner to those steaks I mentioned earlier.  Our hearts are affected by the things we go through.  We either have hearts that are scarred into hard, callous blobs or we have hearts that are softened and easily penetrated by those around us.  We are called to be the latter.

On another side of things, we are commanded to be tenderhearted more indirectly in Matthew 18:3 where Jesus tells us that we must become like little children in order to enter the Kingdom of God.  It kind of reminds me of that baby cow or that little lamb.  Children are more naturally tenderhearted, just like young animals have naturally tender meat.  This is part of why we are called to be "like children"; it's so much more than simple child-like faith.

So often, people use this verse in reference solely to the kind of faith we have in Christ; however, the nature of children is much more tender and perceptive than most who are much older.  A child is much more likely to seek out someone who is hurting and try to comfort them in the most innocent ways.  They are immediately prone to sympathy and empathy for others, where most of us wouldn’t even notice a situation warranting such a reaction.  This is another big reason, I feel, that we are called to be like children.

Jesus suffered through many things in His time on earth.  In Mark 10:38, Jesus speaks of the cup of suffering that He must drink from, and in several other places we find that he gave up all of the glories of heaven in order to come to earth.  In John 16:33, Jesus specifically tells us that we will not come through life unscathed.  He says we "will have trouble", but that it'll be okay because we have His power there with us.

These troubles are kinda like the meat tenderizer.  It's like a hammer that beats our heart until it's soft and pliable.  As we go through more and more in our life, we become more and more able to sympathize with those around us who are suffering.  If we are able to relate to others, we are more able to understand their pain.  This is something that Jesus Christ recognized and put into practice.  Hebrews 4:15 reminds us that we have a Great High Priest that is able to sympathize with the troubles and temptations that we go through in our life.  Because of Christ's influence in our lives, the transition from struggle to a tender heart is a natural progression of events.  1 Peter 2:19 says, "It is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God."  This verse is referring to spiritual persecutions, but also the things we all go through in our lives.  These things tenderize our hearts.