September 3

because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its people, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I have heard you,’ declares the LORD. — 2 Kgs 22:19 BSB

Josiah’s tender heart was something that the Lord specifically noted; it was a sign of God's favor, chosen out from all his other qualities as a mark of goodness. A heart touched by God’s hand is always tender; that tenderness is the result of God’s hand upon the conscience. The difference between a natural conscience and a heart tender in God’s fear is clear: a natural conscience is often superstitious and unreliable. As Jesus said, it “strains out a gnat but swallows a camel.” It’s obsessed with self-imposed austerities and rules but will commit sins that someone who fears God wouldn’t dare do. Yet it will be overly concerned about minor, unimportant matters that a spiritually enlightened person would not even worry about.

But a heart tender in God’s fear responds to the Spirit's work. It’s like a compass that, once touched by the magnet, always points north. It may tremble and waver at times, but it ultimately returns to its true direction. In the same way, when the heart has been touched by the Spirit and made tender in God’s fear, it may occasionally stray, but it will always return to God, who is the true and eternal center of its happiness and holiness.