“If it was a snake it would bite you.” That means it is right in front you. You may not see it, but it is there. After watching Jesus multiply five loaves of bread and two fish to feed thousands of people, and after watching Him walk on water and calm the sea, the closest followers of Jesus still wanted to know where they could get something to eat.
Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. They were completely astounded, 52 because they had not understood about the loaves. Instead, their hearts were hardened. Mark 6:51-52
I get that the evil Pharaoh of the Moses-era had a hard heart. He was a pagan. He was protecting his empire. But the disciples? How could they walk with Jesus and witness the miracles of Jesus, and still have hard hearts? It makes sense that one of them would have a hard heart. There is always one Judas pooh-poohing on our efforts to trust God, but Mark tells us “their hearts were hardened.” It seems hard hearts were all around. And if their hearts could harden like that right in the presence of the water-walking Jesus, what about mine? What about yours?
The very nature of this heart trouble makes it very difficult to see. It literally sneaks up on us. So how can we spot it? What are the signs that our heart is hardening? Consider these warning signs.
Chronic Anxiety
When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water to them, they thought He was a ghost and they were terrified. He said to them, “Have courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.” Their fear clouded their vision so they failed to even recognize Jesus. Fear still does that, and many of us live with a chronic anxiety that blinds us to Jesus and His activity in our lives.
Worry is a silent killer. It is odorless and colorless. We may wake up with it and go to bed with it, but we do not talk about it. Instead, we accommodate it as a way of life. We have private conversations in our head as we drive to work. We run through the what-if’s and project our doubts onto an unknown future. And with each passing day, our hearts atrophy with this convenient poison.
As harmless as anxiety may seem, Jesus warned us. He said, “Don’t worry about your life…” (Matthew 5:25) As He told the parable of the sower, He said the “worries of this age” can choke out the word (Matthew 13:22). As He prepared for the Cross, He told His disciples, “Your heart must not be troubled or fearful” (John 14:27).
The effects of chronic anxiety are real. As fear clouds our vision of Jesus, it erodes our ability to trust Him. So if worry, rather than peace, rules our hearts, we can be sure heart hardening is well underway.
Modern Deism
Jesus literally (not figuratively or metaphorically) provided a meal for thousands of people from a young boy’s lunch pale. It was a miracle witnessed by thousands including Jesus’ closest friends. Then, just hours, if not only a few minutes, later those same friends asked where they would find supper.
Deism is an ancient philosophy that says there is a God, but He is just not directly or practically involved in our lives. It says that if God does care, He does not care enough to get too close. Jesus was close and He was involved, but as the disciples were feeling the pains of hunger, they just were not sure they could trust Him again.
It seems deism is alive and well in the modern era. It is not difficult to find people who believe that Jesus is God and that after being crucified and buried, He now lives. But it is more difficult to find those same people living like He still comes through in the everyday issues of life.
A hard heart causes us to live like Jesus is aloof, disinterested, uninvolved, and maybe even incapable. As science, sports, politics, and finances dominate our lives, they can highjack our faith. Our hearts grow cold and indifferent to the fact that God not only rules over our circumstances, but that He can work outside of them in any way He chooses.
God spoke the world into existence. Jesus multiplied a young boy’s lunch to feed thousands and He did many other miracles. The Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost and ignited a spiritual awakening that turn the world upside down. Our God is not limited by nature, by our circumstances, or even by our faith. He is not only willing, but He is perfectly able to do exceedingly greater things than we can ask or think. The miraculous requires no extra effort on His part.
A hard heart does not stop beating, but it does stop believing God for the impossible.
Stunted Growth
The disciples had seen wonderful things from Jesus, but perhaps they thought they had seen it all. Perhaps they did not expect He could do anything else. A hard heart tells us we have seen all we need to see. A hard heart tells us that our presuppositions are good enough. A hard heart does not allow for the possibility that we have been wrong for all these years. A hard heart makes no room for learning, for adventure, or for fresh faith. A hard heart, instead, nurtures ignorance and convinces us that stumbling around in the dark is true liberation.
These men were not unbelievers. They were not skeptics. They were followers of Jesus, yet their hearts were dull, and as a result, their spiritual growth was stunted. Jesus intended for them to make disciples in all the world, yet they were not quite ready to trust Him for their next meal.
Just maybe the hunger pains we feel and the questions we have are a vital part of our basic training. Maybe God wants us to learn to trust Him in a way we have never trusted Him before. Maybe the stress and strain of life is not a reason to despair, but a reason to hope that God is preparing us for something more.
Unfortunately, too many believers are still on the boat just thinking about supper. Our hard hearts leave us satisfied with paying the bills, taking an annual vacation, and enjoying a ballgame every now and then. And anything that threatens our expected way of life is something we oppose rather than embrace. Our hard hearts make us un-teachable, and the result is a dull faith, a boring life, a stunted personal growth, and a world waiting for the Gospel.
Nurtured Rebellion
We do not like the word “rebellion,” but the Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). We sometimes assume that Jesus only rebuked the religious hypocrites for their feigned faith, but actually He showed great frustration for the little faith of His disciples. For followers of Jesus, trusting God is not an optional assignment.
As Satan appealed to Eve and convinced her that obeying God’s Word was not in her best interest, a hard heart will cause us to harbor unbelief, minimize God’s Word, and rationalize sin. A hard heart blinds us to the ways of God and numbs our conscience to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. As sin saturates our lives, our heart only desires more of it. We protect it. We sacrifice relationships for it. We pay money for it. We give ourselves over to it.
Like a stash of money hidden away, we protect our rebellion with our lives. We push away anyone who tries to replace it. We attack those who speak against it. And soon, we normalize it because after investing all the effort, time and money, we are now emotionally attached to our sin. It is no longer an act or habit of rebellion; it is our identity.
Our willingness to ignore God’s Word and nurture our rebellion against Him is a sure sign that our heart has hardened.
Hearts Can Change.
We are all vulnerable to hardening of the heart. These four signs can show up in any of us. But that does not mean we should not pay attention. The writer of Hebrews said, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Hebrews 4:7) Revival and spiritual awakening are characterized by God turning “hearts of stone into hearts of flesh” when we return to Him (Ezekiel 11). Jesus’ first followers learned to trust Him, and He softened their hearts and pressed His life out through theirs.
A hard heart does not have to be destroy us. Jesus will carefully and powerfully till the soil of our hard heart until it is a fertile place for His greatest work. Yes, that is Him at work. That is His voice you hear. That is His invitation to trust in Him again.