On Becoming

Life changes us. Some people get better, some get worse, but nobody remains unchanged. At least, that’s the conclusion I’m coming to. Either my memory is failing me — a possibility I won’t completely discount — or my old friends and acquaintances are different people than they were in their teens, twenties and thirties. Time and circumstances have either refined or greatly eroded their characters, depending on how they responded to what life has served up.

That can be a scary thing to witness up close.

Two Kinds of Hard Hearts

“And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.” (Mark 6:52)

I’m thinking about all the times I’ve failed to respond to something in the word of God that should’ve been obvious to me.

See, I don’t believe every reference to a “hard heart” in Scripture means precisely the same thing.

The pharaoh of Egypt in the book of Exodus had a hard heart. He wanted to keep Israel in slavery, and was prepared to continue doing so no matter what miracles he saw. He was a man who put political expediency and ill-gotten profit ahead of justice, fear of God or even his own five senses.

That’s one kind of hardness.