I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

I received a rather unique Valentine’s Day gift from the mother of one of my patients. There in the midst of all the candy was a tiny little tub of play dough. I took the play dough out and began to roll it around in my hands. I noticed how smooth and easily moldable it was wondering if God feels the same way with my heart in His hands. It must be satisfying to hold a malleable, moldable heart rather than a firm, dense heart of stone.

I flattened out the ball I had formed then took my pen and began to trace a heart into the play dough. It glided effortlessly through as it made a visible imprint. God speaks to pliable hearts. Well, actually He speaks to all hearts, but we can’t hear His voice if we have a heart of stone because there would be no imprint. We must take special care to make sure our hearts are pliable to God. How else will we be able to decipher His messages? How else will we ever transform? God speaks to us all the time, but if our hearts are hardened, we will miss it!

There’s absolutely nothing worse to a teacher than a student who thinks they know it all. We must remain teachable to be reachable by God, or rather, for God to be reachable to us.

One of the things that keeps us from being teachable is pride. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. (James 4:6) To be teachable is to be humble. We must humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, becoming like play dough.

Disobedience also keeps us from being teachable by God. You can only learn so much from someone whose judgment you don’t trust. Our obedience to God is a reflection of our trust in Him and His authority.

Unforgiveness is yet another thing that holds us back in the school of life—whether it be towards others, ourselves, or God. Unforgiveness hardens our hearts and makes us unteachable. The joyful heart is eager to learn, but the bitter heart resists sound teaching. Unforgiveness preoccupies us making us tired and weary.

Fear keeps us in bondage. It keeps us from being open to change, from being willing to learn the hard lessons. Fear keeps us from hearing God. Why? Because so often God says things we don’t want to hear!

Even with a moldable play dough heart, we can still block ourselves from receiving the blessing that is God’s wisdom. “How” you ask? By placing our heart in the wrong hands. If we don’t guard our hearts, someone will come along and mold our hearts into something God never intended for us.

Although it was my play dough heart that led me to getting hurt in the past, I’ve come to realize the things that made me vulnerable were the same things that enabled me to be molded by my Father eventually looking more like Him. The key was learning whose hands to put my heart in.