Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The Hard Heart

Whenever I read Exodus I’m horrified by Pharaoh’s behavior. Pharaoh tells Moses he’ll release the Israelites time and time again, yet when each plague subsides and the threat diminishes, he retracts his promise. Pharaoh chooses to ignore God; he intentionally hardens his heart against God:

“But when the Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.” (Exodus 8:15)

“What a colossal jerk,” I think to myself. “How can he be so stupid? How can he choose to make the same mistake over and over again?”

It’s taken me years to recognize that I’ve had more than a few Pharaoh moments myself.

Take, for instance, the times in which I intentionally choose not to obey God. It’s true. I have done this. In the heat of the moment -- a moment in which I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am sinning -- I consciously choose to continue my sinful behavior.

It usually plays out like this:

An aggravating situation with my kids snowballs, and before I know it, my voice escalates into the witchy octave, my hair coils into writhing snakes and smoke seeps from my ears. At that moment I have a choice: I can lock myself in the bathroom until my blood pressure normalizes and I am able to discuss the problem rationally with my kids. Or I can proceed in Medusa-mom mode.

I admit, more than once I have chosen Medusa-mom mode. Even when I’ve unmistakably heard God’s voice in my head, there have been times that I have hardened my heart to him and intentionally tumbled toward sin.

I suspect most of us have been there, in the Pharaoh moment.  I suspect most of us have chosen to harden our hearts against God more than once in our lives. It’s an ugly place, isn’t it? And it’s a lonely place, too.

The difference between most of us and Pharaoh, of course, is that we don’t stay in that ugly, lonely, stubborn place forever. We relent. We repent. We soften our hearts. And when we come back to God he accepts us with grace, no strings attached.

I suspect he would have done the same for even the colossally jerky Pharaoh, too.

Do you ever see any similarities between yourself and Pharaoh?

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{apologies, apologies for forgetting to put the linky up till late this morning! Monday morning, jeepers!}