Just as the Lord Had Said: What Does Real Repentance Look Like?

We come now to the dreaded plagues. 

As I ponder these ten plagues, which occur between chapters 7 and 11, there’s an observation I would like to test with you. I observe a behavioral phenomenon in Pharaoh’s response to the plagues that I believe illuminates a broken pattern in human nature in the midst of a crisis situation.

Here’s the pattern: Plague comes. Pharaoh agrees to relent and release the Israelites. Plague stops. Pharaoh reverts to his former recalcitrance. Rinse and repeat.

Here is an example of what I reference:

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. “This time I have sinned,” he said to them. “The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Pray to the Lord, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go; you don’t have to stay any longer.” (Ex. 9:27–28)

Watch what happens next: “When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again: He and his officials hardened their hearts” (Ex. 9:34).

It’s tempting to characterize Pharaoh’s response as a change of heart. It even appears to be confession and repentance. Once the plague relents, though, he reverts to his former posture. He has not changed at all. He merely responded to a crisis in what seemed to him as an expedient solution.

After each plague, we see the same pattern. What if this is the definition of hard-heartedness—the refusal to see repentance through to real change? A hard-hearted person will respond to disaster just like everyone else. They want relief. The difference is a hard-hearted person will not ultimately change. They simply readjust.

When they go back to their old normal, it creates a new normal for everyone else. Because I refuse to change, other people are forced to adjust to the conditions created by my hard heart. Note how costly Pharaoh’s hard-heartedness proves for the people of Egypt. It will result in enormous losses, the chief of which will be the death of the firstborn son in every single household.

As we struggled our way through Covid-19, we felt ourselves under a plague. It passed. The question is: Did we change temporarily and then seamlessly shift into the new normal, or did we attune our lives to the ways God was calling us to repent and realign with his kingdom going forward?

I guess the question I am asking has to do with awakening. Sometimes, we confuse waking up with hitting the snooze bar. The alarm of crisis goes off, and it registers, yet we all too easily hit the snooze bar for another nine minutes of sleep. We sort of woke up, but not really. I’m afraid that’s how it is with these situations like we find ourselves in now. The alarm can be deafening, and yet we somehow find a way to hit snooze until the next one.

What if the matter of hard-heartedness is not as simple as comparing oneself to the obvious example of an ancient abusive Pharaoh? What if the more subtle symptom of hard-heartedness is waking up just enough to push the snooze bar and then back to the slumber of the old normal?

We’ve been through this enough now to know it is likely to happen again. How many new normals must we adjust to before saying enough? We’ve seen it happen too many times now to think anything will change unless we actually change in a sustained way. 

But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said. 

Here’s what I think it comes down to. When the tough times of Plan B arise, the thing we most want is relief. God is looking for people who want him. That’s what Plan A is all about. It’s not a temporary relief strategy. It is the sustained presence of Almighty God in our midst.