Hardening our Hearts

Exodus 8 focuses on the more commonly known plagues. I think this passage emphasized instances at which we harden our hearts toward God:

1. We harden our hearts towards God after we receive relief from hardship. In Exodus 8:14 pharaoh hardened his heart and he would not listen to God. In this instance, we would not want to listen to God's calling because we only turn to Him when we need help with something. We are so afraid that God is going to ask us to do something we would not want to do because it's not for our immediate benefit. Moses and Aaron approached pharaoh with the request of letting the Israelites worship Him in the wilderness. Pharaoh's resistance is to their request, even after God granted his request because he pharaoh did not want to let go of his control over the Israelites. 

2. We harden our hearts when we try to do something and God shows us that we're not capable of doing anything about. The gnats convinced the magicians that it is by God's hand because they could not do anything about it. However pharaoh hardened his heart and decided not to listen to them. In this instance, we end up convincing ourselves that we're just a victim of circumstances. In hardening our hearts in this situation, we don't want to believe it's the finger of God that has put us in that situation. More often than not, we convince ourselves that God is not really working in our lives, to the point we convince ourselves He doesn't exist. 

3. We harden our hearts when we feel so thankful to God that we make a promise we know we can't keep. This is so because our perception of being thankful is to return the favor so that we won't have to be thankful for what God did anymore. You know this is true whenever you feel like you owe someone something. Most of the time, we're more than willing to throw away that debt that we owe than to show a sign of thankfulness the other person deserves. And that's also the case with God. Pharaoh makes a promise because God removes the flies that He brought upon Egypt. Rather than giving thanks to Moses or God, pharaoh reneges on his promise.

It's easy to be hard on pharaoh for hardening his heart in all these situations. But when we look at ourselves we tend to commit the same acts he did. We turn to God only in hardship and we don't give Him the credit He deserves after we're saved from it. We are put into a situation where we can't seem to overcome it and we convince ourselves that we just need more courage, or more of something we already have instead of acknowledging God. And after God proves Himself time and time again, we are so reluctant to just give thanks and praise that instead we try to earn His favor by working our way into our perception of being "debt-free" and God shows us that we can't even do that. 

Pharaoh's reluctance to let the Israelites go stems from pride. He did not want to acknowledge God nor His sovereignty because to do so is to concede to that pharaoh's control and sovereignty over all things. In pharaoh's case it's sovereignty over Egypt, over the Israelites, and over his own will. Our lives is the very reflection of that rebellion. That is the nature of sin, that we don't want to give in to God. That's exactly why He sent Jesus, not because we're imperfect humans that need improving but because we're rebellious in our doings against God.