Today, our students were AMAZING. Okay, fine. They’re always amazing. Today they shared their wisdom in especially wise ways.
We are winding down our study of the narrative of Bnai Yisrael (the Jewish people) leaving Egypt. Today, we focused on when God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
We asked, “What can you tell me about the personality of someone with a hard heart?”
- Stubborn
- Meaner
- Angrier
- Lacking self-control
- Unable to love
- Lacking in emotions and feeling
- Can’t (or won’t) build relationships with other people
- Can’t make friends, because the potential friends would reject them
- Not popular
Then we reflected about what we could do if we encounter someone with a hardened heart:
- Show extreme kindness in order to move them
- Show extreme meanness in order to show them what they are doing
- BIG emotions to model how they work
- I can’t help. They have to want to change and do it themselves.
- Only God can help Pharaoh, because God hardened his heart, so only God can unharden it.
- Help the person with a hard heart have better language to share about their experiences
- Ignore them to show them how they are treating people
Seems like having open hearts is an important part of being free! Pharaoh provided such an interesting example of what not to do in relating to other people.