Becoming mellow

Sometime ago, a friend was troubled and sighed that her heart was heavy. The next day when I inquired, “How is your heart today?" her reply, "My heart is mellow,” sent me pondering the word mellow.

It is a common belief that people mellow with age. I’ve mellowed in several areas of my life in the past few years. God really knows how and when to smooth out or even hack away those callous parts that we sometimes foolishly wear as a badge of honor.

“Mellowing” is a progressive grace (my term) that we may not notice initially. But when we do see it in ourselves it is an “AHA!” moment, isn’t it? In that moment, we know for sure that God has done a work in our hearts.

But back to that word, “progressive.” We are not unsympathetic, harsh, strict and severe (all synonyms) one day and mellow the next and that’s that. We, being the finite beings that we are, we go back and forth fighting the callous inner man. Over time, as we continue to abide in Christ and walk in the light of God’s word, the battle becomes less fierce because we grow stronger in the Lord. Mellowing, I think, can be used to describe our becoming more like Christ and I’m thankful that God didn’t leave me to myself and my own devises to live the Christian life and imbibe a grace like mellowing.

Thank you Father for your Holy Spirit, who quickens our hearts, convicts us of sin and prods us to exercise the progressive graces. Thank you for making me mellow, more like my Lord Jesus Christ. I lay my remaining “unmellow” ways at our feet as I depend on you to continue your work in me, until you return.