I've been thinking a lot about a phrase that I've read in the bible a lot and wondered what it would take to get to. It's been a prayer of mine since I came to know the Lord that I would never understand fully what it means to have a hardened heart. And over the last few days the thought has truly been pressing on my mind. In fact, the last 72 hours have truly been a bit of a whirlwind. I've struggled with the devotional--not for lack of trying. Each day, I've spent the time in personal devotion around having a hardened heart, and each day I've felt like I've had a topic that wasn't quite finished.
It didn't make much sense to me until I finally realized that it wasn't really just one negative emotion or behavior but that there were really three in one that are so closely united that they are best discussed together--self-righteousness, conceit, and hardened heart. As I read the scriptures around having a hard heart, I grew sadder and sadder. I think that I've come to understand some of my sadness after some events of the last few days. As a pastor/counselor, over the years I've had the opportunity to walk with people through some of the highest of their highs and the lowest of their lows. And as you watch people make their own personal journeys from the outside looking in, it is only natural to do some self-checking on your own "right-ness".
It's like watching a child go to touch a hot stove burner. You tell them, "Don't touch. It's hot." Most of us as children were just hard-
headed enough to try it anyway. And we'd have to have touched the heated metal before we had a concept of what "hot" meant. Usually, that would be enough to ward us off. But then there's the child who, after they got that understanding would tempt fate and try to see just how close they could place their hand over and over again without reaching that final sting--getting close enough to feel the increased heat but not so close that they are truly burned. Then you have those few for whom the sting of burning flesh may not have been enough. Those are the few (perhaps somewhat psychotic) who would touch the eyelet and see how long they could stand the burn. Even the smell of burning flesh could not be enough to register in their brain that they had crossed a line.
It seems crazy, right? And yet this is the image God has given me of myself and of other Christians. As I think of all of the things that I've struggled with through the years--all of the ways that I've sinned and compromised righteousness and push the limits on how far I'd go to stay just within the boundaries of "the law"--I'm amazed at God's continued mercy and grace. I often read through the Old Testament and shake my head at the children of Israel. I can see them from the outside looking in and say "How can you be so stupid and so disobedient to a gracious God? How could you spend 40 years in the desert making an 8-11 day trip? Why couldn't you just get it right?!" It's just like with the child touching the burner. You think, "Why can't you just listen when I say 'don't touch' instead of having to push the envelope?" I can point the finger at them and see the "splinters in their eyes", however that has usually backfired on me as God points out the planks in mine (Mathew 7:3-5).
It's that place of judgement and self-righteousness that I began to see is tied to a hardened heart. Often we get into a space where our confidence is misplaced. We become confident to the point of conceit and think that we can't be broken or that nothing can get beyond us. We tell ourselves so many self-elevating lies: We're on top of everything. We are superheros in our own minds. The thing that trips up another person will not trip us up. The same rules that apply to others, the same cautions from the Lord, don't apply to us. God's commands are merely guidelines that we can use. And it's so easy to do that most of us do it daily. We push the boundaries and subconsciously (and consciously) try to figure out just how far we can go before we have truly broken the rules. We get as close to the edge of our spiritual obedience cliffs as possible without falling over.
And just as we watch children burning their fingers or read of the children of Israel in disbelief, I believe that God watches us with an equally grieved heart. God's desire is for the best for us. Like any parent, He'd love for us to understand and get things merely on his "say so". But like any parent he also understands that there are some things we just have to experience. And so we go through the ringer and we experience testing and trials that are, in some cases, of our own making as we push the boundaries. Sometimes God has to use that "tough love" methodology and not rescue us but allow the consequences of our behavior to humble us and remind us that there is none righteous except God.
Today, I want to encourage you to do a self check and ask yourself where you are pushing the boundaries. Where have you been delayed in your obedience (thus creating disobedience)? Where have you held confidence in yourself and not kept your confidence in Christ. Where have you allowed your confidence and self-righteousness to distance you from sage advice turning your hard head to a hardened heart? "Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." (Hebrews 3:15) Listen close to the heeding of the Lord and walk boldly in the confidence we have in him to accomplish all that he has for you. And I pray that the places that your heart has begun to harden will get chipped away by his voice, his guiding, his love and his grace.
Be encouraged,
Pastor Andrea
I've decided that one of the most pitiful, "something's not right here" sights I've seen in a long while (next to a pretty, well-dressed, grown woman cursing like a sailor) was a grown Christian person pouting the other day because they didn't get their way. They wanted something that a child wanted as well, and the other adults in the room all agreed that the child should have it. So when the child got it, I swear I saw the bottom lip of this grown person begin to tremble. And it wouldn't have been so bad except that today, I caught myself having a conversation with God and making the very same face as I pouted over an unfulfilled prayer request...Ouch...Busted!
