The Bible speaks often and profoundly of the human heart as the real “you.”

• My heart pursues what I truly love, and is indifferent to the things that I don’t care about (Matthew 6:21).
• My heart is susceptible to external influences — good and bad — and must be guarded (Proverbs 4:23).
• My heart can be consumed with one thing, or it can be partitioned by affections for many things (Psalm 86:11, Mark 12:30).
• My heart can be pure, or it can be morally unclean, clouding my perception of truth (Psalm 51:10).
• My heart can erupt in joy, or it can be be shattered by sorrow (1 Peter 1:8, Psalm 147:3).
• My heart is that immaterial part of me that exercises belief or unbelief (Romans 10:9-10).

And most significantly, my heart can be hard or tender towards God (2 Chronicles 24:37). Comparing the human heart to a field that must be prepared before there can be a harvest, the prophet Hosea writes,

…break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD… Hosea 10:12

Is my heart like a long-neglected field, hardened against the quiet winds of God’s Spirit blowing across my soul?

In his 1956 book In the Day of Thy Power, Arthur Wallis (1922 – 1988) penned a classic reflection on genuine spiritual revival. In the following quote, he explains the vital role of a tender heart in apprehending (or missing) who God is and what He is doing around me.

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“Here then is the first great condition of revival, that brokenness of heart that is sensitive to the least touch of the Spirit, and that has only to know the will of God to do it. One may cross fallow ground and not see where the feet have trod – no impression has been made. But when the plough and the harrow have done their work, and the soil is soft and friable, then the print of the foot is clearly seen. When our hearts are sensitive, responsive, and impressionable to the movements of God across our lives, we may be sure that the fallow ground is broken.”

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Source: Wallis, Arthur. In the Day of Thy Power. London: Christian Literature Crusade, 1956.