Once when I was younger, I stayed with a group of guys at a lake house for a church retreat. The first morning we were there one of the guys wordlessly walked out into the lake in his bathing suit holding a bar of soap and proceeded to bathe in the middle of the water. It was a crisp fall morning – I’m sure the water was freezing. What was he doing? One of my fellow observers joked, “Now he’s an educated guy…why would he do something like that.” A fellow onlooker responded, “That’s nothing.  I work all day with physicists who don’t know how to come in out of the rain.” I have always found that exchange illuminating. 

It’s an unspoken tenet of modern life that education equals success. People who are highly educated just seem more credible, and it’s generally assumed that the more educated you are, the more you have your life together. Don’t get me wrong – I strongly believe education is important. But one thing I’ve observed as I’ve worked in academic settings for most of my adult life is that the link between knowledge and wisdom is more tenuous than we would like to admit. Have you ever wondered sometimes why really smart people do really dumb things? Sometimes the most educated among us make decisions that in retrospect seem absurd.   

The Bible tells us that this isn’t unusual or unexpected. It certainly doesn’t surprise God when it happens. All the way back in the book of Exodus depicts Egypt’s leader, Pharaoh, “hardening his heart” by defying the God’s command to let His people go. In the face of terrible plagues, he still refuses to submit to God and set the Israelites free, despite those around him practically begging him to change his mind. The tension in the story is clear – he knows the right thing to do, but he can’t bring himself to give in and do it. 

This pattern echoes throughout the Bible. Our intellect and our decision-making are often hampered when we defy God’s commands. In other words, there is an intellectual and spiritual cost to doing as we please. If we dig in and refuse to acknowledge God’s ways, the Bible says our very hearts can become calloused. A hard heart eventually becomes desensitized to God, and we end up where we don’t want to be. As our church has been studying the book of Romans, I’ve been impressed by how often our understanding is darkened by the foolishness of our hearts. The callouses on our heart desensitize us to the moral beauty of God’s plan and numb us to our true spiritual condition. In short, we wake up one day and realize we’ve reached a place we never really intended to go. How is a heart deceived? By shutting itself off from the voice of its Creator. 

And yet, God in his mercy is always there waiting for us in the darkness. If you have found yourself in this situation, ask yourself how you got there, and if you’re ready for a change. If you are, the Bible teaches in Romans 10 that God’s word is always near you, and that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved. The only true antidote to a hardened heart is the tender mercy and forgiveness offered by Jesus.