What’s so great about having a heart of gold, anyway? Gold is precious, rare, highly valued and sought after. The thing about gold that no one talks about though is that it’s easily manipulated. It’s estimated that a single ounce of gold can be flattened into a 100 square foot sheet. So why is it such a term of endearment when someone tells us we have this rare and beautiful thing—a “heart of gold”?

There’s another side of the coin we must examine when talking about gold. Yes, it’s easy to manipulate and thus more easily stretched thin, but we must also take into consideration the fact that gold is highly malleable. In fact, it is the most malleable of all known metals. Malleability is a physical property that can be measured by how much pressure and compression the metal can withstand without breaking. So although gold can be easily moved, it cannot be easily broken.

I will give you a new heart. (Ezekiel 36:26)

Many times in my life my heart had been broken, but God gave to me a new heart. This new heart is quite different than my old one. It’s clean, shiny, new; it sparkles in a way it never really had before, like gold. This heart still aches at times, but no one has the power to break it; no one has the power to break me. I may be moved; I may be stretched thin; I may be hurt, feel pain; I may even be manipulated, but I’m highly malleable, and I won’t be broken. This heart of gold beats for God.