Tender Heart by Richard Sibbes
By Pam Tailyour, 10 May 2020
During the lockdown, one way that Christians who have time can make the most of it is to read. We’ve been encouraging our Church family to read, and you can remind yourself in these articles:
In this blog, we hear from Pam Sullivan-Tailyour, and how reading a classic really helped her...
Last Reformation Day, the church family was challenged to ‘start’ or ‘restart’ in this talk. To ‘start’ to read older texts, written by those who have gone before us (the Puritans and Reformers), or ‘restart’ our reading we had left behind. Being a mother of two young children (at the time two and ten months) I fought to engage as Gerry encouraged and built us up in the rich church history that teaches us so much, with my husband and recently widowed mother-in-law sat to the left of me. But this is one part I really tuned into… ‘start’ or ‘restart’. I underlined ‘restart’ in my handout and resolved in that moment that it was time. I love reading, but getting back into Christian texts was what I needed to teach me the Bible.
At the end of the evening, my husband John chose (among many) the thickest book on the stall. I was instantly overwhelmed by the thought of it, and went instead, for the two thinnest books and the very thinnest was ‘The Tender Heart’ by Richard Sibbes.
I’m not writing to tell you what it’s all about (I haven’t got the brain power to explain the fifty-six quotes I copied down), but I am writing to tell you what the book’s done, and how I would describe it. So, hop on to my train of thought, and here goes…
Reading this little book came at a time when my heart had grown cold and troubled. A combination of life events and still struggling to ‘bounce back’ after the birth of our second son left me starving for the Word but unable to feed myself. One of those frightening times when you don’t know what to read or if you do, how to read it or pray in light of it. It was totally bewildering and I was at my wits end and very concerned for my heart, as I was unable to identify my sinfulness in it all... My husband had been reading a few verses to me of a gospel and sharing a few thoughts and he helped me to pray, we did that a few times a week. It was a real lifeline. But I wanted more.
And this litlte book really helped me. As I sat on my armchair one Sunday evening, copying out the hard-to-narrow-down favourite quotes, and taking a sip of wine, I thought to myself: ‘What can I liken reading this book to?’ Suddenly, that was it! I’d liken reading this book to drinking a glass of red wine. Its colour so deep and its taste so rich, just like the wine’s.
I sip it slowly and thoughtfully, considering, but needing a little longer to grasp it’s fullness and stateliness. It wakes the senses, anticipation as my hands search for the page – or the glass, having decided it’s time for another sip. The insistent smell preparing me for that taste of many dimensions: wonder, satisfaction, curiousity – knowing the taste – or the thought – lasts a while before it settles. And I want to make sure I wait an appropriate time before I take another sip (not too soon); another hit of truth and reality: winsome, warming as it sinks in, and wise.
The first taste drew me in, took me to somewhere I was familiar with but hadn’t explored before, grew my perspective of that area and made me pleased to the have the whole from which it came (the Bible… or the bottle), and the chance to taste from it again.
So this book came at just the right moment, as did many of my Father’s small day-to-day kindnesses that drew me back, repentant and joyful, to his Word.
Here are some quotes from Sibbes to whet your appetite...
'A tender heart is made tender by him that made it. For no creature in the world can soften and turn the heart, only God must alter and change it; for we are all by nature earthly, dead , and hard...but I am sure nothing will melt the hard heart of man but the blood of Christ, the passion of our blessed Saviour.'
'When our souls are persuaded that God loves us from everlasting, then we reflect our love to him again; and then our heart says to God, ' Speak, Lord; what wilt thou have me to do?' The soul is pliable for doing, for suffering, for anything God will have it.'
‘Let us use all means to keep our hearts tender. Oh, it is a blessed estate! We are fit to live when our hearts are tender; fit to die, fit to receive anything from God, fit for duties of honesty to men, for any service to God. But when we have lost sense and feeling, it must be the almighty power of God that must recover us again, and not one amongst an hundred comes to good. Therefore labour to preserve a tender, soft, and melting heart.’