Hard Hearts and Swarms of Problems

Our God has designed our minds to value logic and to use it to find our ways and protect ourselves and our families. We use it to imagine things and then to build them.

Paul suggested to the Believers in Corinth that they needed to have their logic influenced by the experiences that were recorded about the Israelis who followed Moses out of Egypt:

Now I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. But God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the desert.

Now these things became examples for us, so that we will not desire evil as they did. Don’t become idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and got up to play. Let us not commit sexual immorality as some of them did, and in a single day 23,000 people fell dead. Let us not tempt Christ as some of them did, and were destroyed by snakes. Nor should we complain as some of them did, and were killed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as examples, and they were written as a warning to us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape, so that you are able to bear it.
(1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Holman Christian Standard Bible® ©)

Yahweh told Moses that He had made Pharaoh’s heart hard, so that he would do what Yahweh wanted, and so that in the process Yahweh could show His powers to both destroy and to protect.

When we are facing a power who is against us in the earth, we shouldn’t base our logic on how to interact with them on who they are and what they are doing. We should build our logic from Who Yahweh is and what He is doing. When storms and bugs and destruction comes, we should expect to be protected while we watch our enemies fall before our God.

When we are deciding how to spend our time and emotion and how to interpret opportunities or dangers, we need to be influenced by what we know of Yahweh.