How to Keep Your Heart Soft in Hard Times

Just a couple hundred meters from our church office, a missile struck an apartment building.It happened around 7:00 in the morning. Thankfully, I was still at home drinking my coffee when I heard the explosion. A few hours later, as I drove to church, I was met with a large traffic jam because the missile had hit the very road I travel every day.When I arrived at the office, I walked down the street toward the scene. I could see the top of the apartment building where the missile had struck. Three people had been killed.The top of the building that was hitLiving in Ukraine, these things affect us.We've now lived through more than four years of war. Missile strikes, drones, air raid sirens, and destruction have become part of everyday life. As I reflected on that morning, one thought kept weighing on my mind: the danger of a hardened heart.The Danger of a Hardened HeartOne of the effects of living in a war-torn country is that prolonged exposure to war, death, pain, and violence slowly hardens the heart. I've experienced this myself. The reality is that you cannot live through years of destruction and become emotionally overwhelmed every time another missile strikes. We develop ways to cope. But as Christians, we must be careful that those coping mechanisms do not become callousness. That's exactly what the enemy wants.The same thing happens spiritually. When sin surrounds us every day, we gradually become accustomed to it. What once grieved us no longer does. Suffering can have the same effect.I still remember the first morning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The explosions. The fear. The uncertainty. But then came the second day, the third day, the first month—and eventually the years. The temptation is to become numb. In fact, after this most recent missile strike, I found myself almost more frustrated by the traffic jam than by the explosion itself. I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm saying that's the temptation.So how do we guard our hearts?Jesus Didn't Shy Away from Pain and SorrowThe answer begins by looking at Jesus. Isaiah describes the coming Messiah this way:He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. - Isaiah 53:3One of the great encouragements of the gospel is that Jesus never kept His distance from a broken world. He didn't avoid suffering. He walked straight into it. When we look at a world filled with war, sickness, injustice, and death, we realize we cannot fix it all. But Jesus entered into humanity's suffering and understands it better than anyone.Jesus Never Dismissed the Pain of OthersOne of the clearest examples is found in John 11. When Jesus came to the tomb of Lazarus, He found Mary, Martha, and the others weeping.When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. - John 11:33Jesus knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. Yet He didn't rush past their sorrow. He entered into it. He never dismissed their grief simply because He knew how the story would end.Jesus Had Deep Compassion for PeopleThroughout the Gospels, compassion is one of the defining marks of Jesus' ministry. He never treated people's pain as an interruption or inconvenience. He entered into their sorrow and walked alongside them. That's a great comfort for every believer. Whatever grief we carry, Jesus understands. He has experienced suffering Himself, and our Savior is never distant from the pain of His people.Jesus Was Indignant at InjusticeJesus' response to suffering was not only compassion. When a man with leprosy came begging to be healed, Mark writes:Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man... - Mark 1:41Jesus was angered by the effects of sin and the suffering it had brought into the world.bLiving through this war, I've felt that myself. Watching innocent Ukrainians suffer naturally stirs anger toward the evil that caused it. There is a place for righteous indignation—but we must be careful what we do with it.Jesus Did Not Stay Dwelling in GriefOne of the things I love about the Gospels is that Jesus never remained in sorrow. He entered fully into the suffering of others, yet He didn't allow Himself to marinate in grief. Again and again, we see Him entrusting Himself to His Father. Jesus understood that grief had its proper place, but it was never meant to become His dwelling place. That's an example we desperately need to follow.Jesus Made Time to Be with the FatherThroughout the Gospels we repeatedly find Jesus withdrawing to lonely places to pray. Again and again, He stepped away from the crowds to spend time with His Father.When we live in the middle of continual trauma, we need those same rhythms.Personally, I've found the book of Psalms to be one of the greatest helps. More than any trauma manual, the Psalms give voice to our grief while continually directing our hearts back to God.Jesus Carried Joy in the Midst of SufferingJesus was a man of sorrows, but He was also a man of joy. On the night before the cross, He prayed:I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. - John 17:13Think about that. Jesus spoke of joy as He walked toward the cross. That is one of the beautiful tensions of the Christian life. We experience grief, pain, and loss, yet at the same time we possess a joy that suffering cannot take away because it is rooted in Christ.Following Jesus in a World of SufferingOne of the unique realities of ministry in Ukraine is that suffering can produce two very different responses. God often uses pain to soften hearts and draw people to Himself. But prolonged suffering can also harden hearts.As followers of Christ, our calling is not to offer shallow answers. It is to follow the example of Jesus—to enter into the pain of others with compassion, to grieve over injustice, to remain close to the Father, and to hold fast to the joy that only He can give.May God guard our hearts from becoming hardened. And may He help us reflect the heart of Christ in a world that desperately needs the hope of the gospel.