The Danger of Dull-Heartedness

When God looks on our hearts, what does He see? Could we be stagnating, becoming complacent—and developing a dull heart? What does the Bible give as the cure?

Jeremiah the prophet spoke of coming times of trouble and captivity to the nation of Judah. In the middle of sharing a warning from God of destruction of the land of Judah, Jeremiah spoke for himself, of his own sorrow for the fate of his beloved nation and the national leaders who had led them down the sinful, idolatrous paths. “For the shepherds have become dull-hearted,” he said, “and have not sought the LORD” (Jeremiah 10:21).

Earlier in the same chapter, Jeremiah referred to the common people who had fallen into the snare of idolatry using the same phrase: “Everyone is dull-hearted, without knowledge” (Jeremiah 10:14).

What does it mean to be dull-hearted? How do we know if we have become dull-hearted? And what is the nature of the heart that God wants us to have?

Hard hearts and dull hearts

The Bible uses many terms to describe the nature of people by metaphorically describing their hearts (Luke 6:45). In the Bible, the heart represents the core of who a person is and how they live. For example, our hearts can be backsliding (Proverbs 14:14), slow (Luke 24:25), deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), perverse (Proverbs 12:8) or hard (Exodus 4:21).

Hard-heartedness seems to be a matter of pride, where people put themselves on par with God. This term is synonymous with the heart of stone, symbolizing humanity’s disobedience to God and the resultant inability to truly know Him. It generally refers to the unconverted heart.

Dull-heartedness, however, seems to be a matter of complacency. This term is usually used in reference to people who do know God, or at least used to or should know Him, but drifted from contact with Him (Jeremiah 10:14, 21; Matthew 13:14-15).

The dulling of the heart seems to represent the dulling of all of our spiritual senses, including our hearing, or intake and understanding of God’s Word (Hebrews 5:11; Isaiah 6:10); our sight, or knowledge of our own spiritual state (Revelation 3:17-18; Isaiah 6:10); and our conscience, or knowledge of right and wrong and sense of guilt upon wrong-doing (1 Timothy 4:2).

The cause …

God gives knowledge and understanding of His Word and plan to only a few in today’s world (Matthew 13:11). But once He has given us that spiritual knowledge of who He is and what great work He is doing in us and through us, we must hold fast to that knowledge! We should continually meditate on and seek to deepen our understanding of His Word and how to serve Him in the way He commands.

Dull-heartedness can cause us to stop seeking God, and thus to stop actively applying ourselves to seeing, hearing and comprehending His Word and how it should affect our lives. It’s possible to simply read the Bible without getting anything out of it. If we don’t change our lives as a result, we become spiritually stagnant and complacent.

Dull-heartedness often stems from this sense of complacency. Perhaps life is comfortable. Perhaps we are blessed with relative quiet, like the Jews in Jeremiah’s day prior to the Babylonian attack. Perhaps we are exhausted with the struggles of life and feel we are too tired to devote time to our spiritual lives.

And the cure

In any case, we know what we must do:

Fight complacency and compromise with fervor and zeal! Fight dull-heartedness with wholeheartedness.

Wholeheartedness is holding God and your relationship with Him as highest priority in your life. He is the one ingredient that gives life meaning and direction. It means putting forth energy, emotion and hard work seeking Him in every decision and every thought.

Our journey toward wholeheartedness will be lifelong. David, the man after God’s own heart, is recorded as one of the best examples of wholeheartedness in the Bible. The book of Psalms is full of his wholehearted praise for God, but also includes his pleas to God to help him be even more complete in his worship and obedience: “Teach me your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name. I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify Your name forevermore” (Psalm 86:11-12). David poetically asks God to unite his heart—to connect his aspirations, emotions, thoughts and priorities all into one purpose: fearing God.

So, if our hearts have become dull and we fear that God is far away, there is a cure. In a letter written to many of the same Jews he had called dull-hearted, now in Babylonian exile, Jeremiah encouraged them on behalf of their Maker to change their hearts. “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

For further insight into seeking God with our whole hearts, read:

• God’s People Must Struggle.

• 7 Ways to Please God.

Erica Bennett is a dietetic intern and is a member of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, in St. Petersburg, Florida.