As I was doing my Bible study this week in the book of Exodus, I read multiple times that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. What does that mean? I have wondered that many times as I have gone through Exodus, but I guess I never really understood what that meant and I just kept reading.

“But I will harden his heart…” Exodus 4:21

It is said multiple times in these chapters. After each of the plagues that God sent to Egypt.

I know that in our day and time, we often just will not give up, we will keep doing the thing that we know is not right, just waiting for it to look like something we are okay with before we say, hey, I was wrong. I should have listened when you told me the first time. But we are too often trapped in wanting to impress others with the way that we are living, or how we are doing something. We truly are not living for God, but for others.

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

Now, in my mind, I see Pharaoh as someone who wants to get as much out of other people as he possibly can. You all know the type of person I am talking about. They feel as if they are owed this from everyone else and they want everyone to bow down to them and worship them because of this or because of that. But as a mom, a daughter, a sister, a wife, I also know that until we serve others, we do not know what the true blessing is. It is not about what others can do for us, but what we can do for them. At that time, this is when I find God’s mercies on my life.

So, my take on Pharaoh is that he was determined to drain whatever he could from everyone else to keep building himself up. He had no desire to serve others, only for them to serve him. You see, God was not putting evil in Pharaoh by hardening his heart, but he was not giving him mercies, because of his hardened heart. God knew (as he knows everything) that until Pharaoh sought to serve others, he would not be worthy of the mercy that God had to give.

Maybe today God doesn’t send plagues as he did in the Bible – or maybe the plagues just look a lot different today than they did back then, but maybe, just maybe these things that are happening to us are because of how we are living. Maybe we are not doing what would glorify God, therefore we are not given mercy in our lives. Maybe we need to take a step back and truly look at how we are treating others, or how when we got angry we threw the book down.

All consequences that happen to us are because of the choices that we make in life. They could have been just the most minor of choices, but because we went one way and not the other, the action that happened was because of that choice. If you are constantly asking why does this keep happening to me, yet you are still making the same choices that led you to that, you will not get a different outcome.

Do you remember playing mercy with others when you were little? You join hands and then you try to make the other person say mercy by bending the hands every which way until they break. Well it is basically the same thing – God lives in us through the Holy Spirit. That mercy that he is trying to get us to say, doesn’t come until we break. We have to quit living our lives constantly trying to get him to say mercy and realize that he has the ultimate power and it is us who should be saying mercy.

We are the ones that have to break to realize and to feel the mercies that God has in store for us. We are the ones that have to realize that our actions are what hardens our heart, not God’s. We are the ones that need to take a step back and look deep inside and ask ourselves what is it that God is trying to teach me here? What is it that I am doing that is blocking that teaching from resonating within me.

So, long winded yes, but hopefully worth it. For me, I will be looking for ways that glorify God in my life, ways to serve others, ways to open my heart for what He is trying to tell me. You see, God speaks to you, but until you stop to listen, you will not hear it.

Today, I have stopped to hear it. I want to see the mercies that God is working for my good. I don’t want a hardened heart, I want all of the beauty that is to be offered, and I know that if I listen, God will show it to me.

I encourage you to take a minute to stop and listen for what God is telling you. Live your life being grateful for all the amazing beauty that is around you and contribute to that beauty. It is truly about what you have in your heart that can shine onto others that makes this life a beautiful thing. So go, live life graciously, and those mercies will be found.