Hardness of Heart – Proverbs 28:14

The book of Job is one of my favorites. Throughout, Job’s friends are trying to convince him that his experiences of suffering are from the hand of God for Job’s sinfulness.  Job has not sinned, but in the process of defending himself and appealing to God, he accuses God of making a mistake in his regard.  God eventually meets with Job and challenges his arrogance, and Job repents.  He never gave up his fear of Yahweh, but hardness of heart crept into his life through his sufferings.

Blessed is the one who fears the LORD always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity. (Proverbs 28:14, ESV)

To fear Yahweh means to so respect Him as the Creator of the universe and the Redeemer of mankind that we submit our lives to Him in repentance for our rebelliousness and trust Him to lead us in the way we should go.  It is to recognize Jesus as our Savior and Lord and to be his follower, learning at his feet and serving his purposes.

The one who does that always will indeed be blessed!

But despite our desire to follow the Lord we at times find our hearts hardened, and it always results in calamity.  We stop trusting Him and find ourselves trusting only ourselves or some other human.  For the one who has been rescued by Jesus this is not and will not be a permanent state.  The Father disciplines those He loves (Proverbs 3:11,12; Hebrews 12:5,6) and will see to it that He brings us back to that softness of heart we originally came to Him with.

Our job is to keep our hearts soft, however, by staying focused on Him and by staying in fellowship with Him.  We’ve all had friends we loved but whom we fell out of sorts with and found our hearts hardening towards.  With God we perceive that He has not done for us what He promised or what we think He promised or should do and we get sideways with Him.  Instead of going to Him to resolve it, we back away, hardened in our own self-righteousness.  This is the path to disaster.

Remember daily what He has done to redeem you and talk to Him about everything.  Listen to what He is telling you and remember that if you have a problem with Him the problem is surely you.