Soft or Hard Hearted | Object Lesson
This is an object lesson that can help you teach your class about the importance of having a soft heart before God.
Needed
- A small tub of Play-Doh
- A fist-sized rock or landscaping stone
- Table or tray for working surface
- Bible for reading Ezekiel 36:26
- Optional: paper towels or wipes for hands
Begin by holding up the Play-Doh and explain that you’re going to do a little art project. Take a small piece and shape it into a simple heart. As you do this, talk about how easy it is to work with. The Play-Doh bends, forms, and smooths out with hardly any effort. It’s soft, responsive, and willing to change shape. Set the finished heart on the table for everyone to see.
Now, hold up the rock and act like you’re going to do the same thing. Tell the kids you’ll try to make a heart out of it too. Press on it, tap it, or even pretend to chip away with your fingers. Of course, nothing will happen. Exaggerate your struggle a bit for humor, then finally admit that it’s impossible to shape this rock with your bare hands. You can’t make it look like a heart because it’s hard, stubborn, and unyielding.
This visual shows the difference between two types of hearts. The Play-Doh heart represents a person who’s tender toward God—someone who listens when He speaks, repents quickly when they’ve done wrong, and allows God to mold their life. The rock represents a heart that has become cold and unmovable. No matter how much God tries to work with it, it won’t change.
Read Ezekiel 36:26 aloud: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” Explain that this verse is God’s promise to give us hearts that can feel His presence and respond to His voice. When we pray and repent, He takes away our stony hearts and gives us new, soft hearts that He can shape into something beautiful.
Talk about how a heart can become hard. Sometimes it happens when we stop praying or when we ignore God’s conviction. It can happen when we hold grudges, get prideful, or stop coming to the altar. The more we resist, the harder our hearts become. But when we pray, worship, and spend time in God’s presence, He keeps our hearts soft and moldable.
Remind the children that right now, while they’re young, their hearts are still like Play-Doh. God can easily shape them into what He wants them to be. But as people grow older and stop listening to God, their hearts can start to harden—like concrete that’s set. It’s much harder to change once that happens. That’s why it’s so important to stay tender to God and to let Him shape us every single day.
End by holding the Play-Doh heart in your hand and saying, “This is how I want my heart to be—soft and ready for God to shape.” Encourage the kids to pray that same thing for themselves. Lead a short prayer asking God to help everyone in the room have soft hearts that listen, obey, and change when He speaks.
