"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."
Ezekiel 36:26
We read elsewhere in the scriptures about the Lord requiring the heart and a willing mind (D&C 64:34), and that we need to have broken hearts and contrite spirits (3 Nephi 9:20). We also read about hardening our hearts (Hebrews 3:8) or becoming "past feeling" (1 Nephi 17:45), so that we can't feel the Holy Ghost in our lives. These are all things that God is teaching us, helping us to understand his gospel and be in a place in our lives where we can feel his influence and act on his promptings.
The cool thing about the new heart and the new spirit I think is that this is imagery relating to baptism and repentance... the idea that even though we have turned away in the past, resisting the Spirit and even stopping our ears, refusing to hear the Lord... even so, the Lord continues to work with us and continues to try, saving every single person that is willing to turn around and do better.
Today, let's do what we can to soften our hearts and hear the Lord... and if we are having trouble with that, let's pray for that "mighty change" of heart (Alma 5:14) that God can grant us, even if we aren't able to get all the way there ourselves. If we are just willing to open our hearts a little bit to God, and let him change us, he will help us become who we want to be.
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