A Shout-Out for More Tenderheartedness

1. Physically tenderize the meat. For tough cuts like chuck steak, a meat mallet can be a surprisingly effective way to break down those tough muscle fibers. “What doesn’t break us makes us stronger” goes the saying. But, suffering and tribulations can also make us tender if we let them do their tenderizing work. Unlike meat, you and I have a will that can prevent struggles from doing their softening work. We can become hardened and bitter, unforgiving and cynical towards God and people if we put up defenses of pride, even playing the victim if necessary. Yet, trials can help us become more like Christ who certainly had his fair share of suffering while on earth. Allow life’s difficulties to soften your heart.
2. Use a marinade. Acidic ingredients like lemon juice, buttermilk, and vinegar add flavor and break down tough protein fibers. When received well, “normal,” everyday challenges gently penetrate our crusty exterior transforming our inner being into kindness and gentleness. When injected directly into our emotions or intellect, these challenges taste bitter. But, when applied moderately and regularly into our heart and soul, we become a more compassionate, understanding person.
3. Don’t forget the salt. Salt draws out moisture helping to concentrate the flavor and acting as a natural brine. Scriptures act as salt bringing to the surface issues which prevent our being tenderized. This is really true as we meditate on scripture. The process of engaging heart and mind with what is written, “hearing it as if for the first time,” draws our heart towards Jesus helping us become more like him. Jesus does his best work with those who have “ears to hear.”
4. Let it come up to room temperature. This is the gentlest of all tenderizing processes for frozen or cold meat. Perhaps begun in the fridge then completed in the kitchen, the meat is simply sitting quietly allowing the environment to do its work. No drama, trauma, harshness, or foreign substance needed. These are time periods when little seems to be happening but much is being accomplished. Sit quietly and be warmed. Receive and engage what God has already put in place.
5. Cook it low-and-slow. Budget cuts of meat with tough muscle fibers need constant but low heat to break down collagen. These special cuts need special treatments. They don’t fry up quickly. We who don’t bring much to the table can be made delicious when we allow the warm and slow work of God to break us down. Think pulled pork in the smoker at 250 degrees for 8-10 hours. It takes a lifetime of enduring and persistent relationship with God to create tenderness reflective of His own.
6. Hit the right internal temperature. Various meats have various “doneness” temperatures. So do humans. We all tenderize at different rates. Even more, it’s the internal temperature that matters. The externals may impress others but the internals matter most to God. That’s why it’s called tenderHEARTedness. When the heart is tender, thoughts and actions follow. Superficiality for meat and for the Christian hides bacterial and fibrous forces which fester and putrefy over time. It’s out of the heart, Jesus teaches, that all kinds of evil and all good proceed.
7. Rest the meat. Without rest, meat can become dry and tough as juices spill out instead of redistributing within the meat. Rest is a significant element in becoming tender like Christ. Jesus invites us to come to Him to find rest for our souls as we enter his relationship with the Father and learn humility from him (Mathew 11.25-30). In union with the Lord, we enter and experience rest. Gone are the heat and pressure needed earlier to make us tender. Now we reside in the tenderness actualized within. Tenderness characterizes who we are.
8. Slice against the grain. All cuts of meat have long muscle fibers that run throughout them. Cutting crosswise against the fibers breaks them and makes the meat more tender to chew. Yet, we have the tendency to resist being rubbed, let alone cut, against our grain. We don’t like it when people challenge us against our will – refuse to do what we ask, contradict us or don’t do “it” our way. However, it’s in those moments that our pride and self-centeredness are confronted, doing a sanctifying work within, if we allow it. Our “fibers” can resist, defend, and harden or they can be tenderized and softened. To become tender and gentle, we must allow ourselves to be sliced across the grain.

(adapted from: www.tasteofhome.com/article/how-to-make-tough-meat-tender/)

Warning: Soft & Mushy

I don’t know if this is an issue with most of us, but we need to be careful not to let ourselves become “tenderized” to the point of becoming mushy. There’s a world of difference between being firm yet tender and being hardened like a rock.

Mushy meat is gross. And gelled milk stinks. Yet, most of us enjoy a juicy, tender rib-eye and a beautifully aged slice of Colby. The tenderizing process is different for each of us.

The point is, we who are not now very tenderhearted, need to readily allow the processes of tempering to take effect.

Christians need to be solid, strong, sturdy, and substantial without being extremely rigid and tough. We need to be gentle and kind in our strength…like Jesus.

Apart from living in the life of Jesus Christ through the Spirit, this is impossible. However, experiencing more of life in Christ will also make us more tenderhearted.

Open yourself up to becoming more tenderhearted beginning with praying for it as you seek to live in Christ and in the Spirit. Then, instead of resisting God’s tenderizing processes, allow all that happens to you to make your heart gentle and kind. Please pray this for me, too.

Please comment on being tenderhearted below. When you do, I’ll pray for you as well.

Dr. K/Keith