Center for Creative Ministry A research organization and research center for Seventh-day Adventist pastors and their congregations
The Plagues
We’re familiar with the term “stubborn as a mule”, but why, exactly, are mules stubborn?
“The reason they’ve gotten the reputation for stubbornness is their well-developed sense of self-preservation,” explains the World Animal Foundation. “When scared, horses have a ‘flight reflex,’ which means that they instinctively run away. A donkey, on the other hand, has a ‘freeze reflex.’ Mules tend to have a highly intelligent blend of the two, which results in the appearance of them having hard-headed tendencies.”
When we describe a person as “stubborn as a mule,” the reasons can be much more complex.
“When you think about someone stubborn, chances are you attribute their unwillingness to bend to their personalities,” reports psychology professor Susan Krauss Whitbourne. “They may be arrogant, narcissistic, or just plain ‘contrarian,’ but in any case, it’s something about the way their traits line up that causes them to be so rigid.
“What if it wasn’t personality at all? Is it possible that people who seem to be stubborn just are unable to take in all the relevant data from the situations in which they find themselves? Perhaps they let their internal assessment override the information that more flexible people can use as guides to their behavior.”
That internal assessment is identified as “predictive coding,” in which we anticipate certain results based on our past experiences. An example is “you might reach for a glass of water in the middle of the night that you ‘think’ is there, and your brain will move your hand accordingly. But maybe the glass isn’t exactly where you thought it should be. A stubborn prediction would lead you either to knock it over or just reach out into empty air.”
It is possible to overcome stubbornness by using creative imagination to anticipate different outcomes. Could it be that the glass isn’t always where you expect it? Flexible people can envision several different options and adapt their expectations accordingly, whereas mule-headed stubbornness results when a person refuses to adapt to the new reality and continues to reach for the same spot.
Expecting things to continue as before doesn’t necessarily seem like stubbornness. Predictive coding, however, can be a very deceptive trap.
Pharaoh apparently developed a powerful sense of predictive coding. In Pharaoh’s mind, the Egyptian gods always defeated the gods of the other nations, so why should he bow to Moses’ God? Hapi, the god of the Nile, always provided life-giving water. Osiris, the god of agriculture and fertility, always fed the Egyptians. Their sun-god, Ra, always gave light.
The problem for Pharaoh arose when, confronted with alternative realities—the Nile produced blood rather than water, hail destroyed their crops, and the sun went dark—he couldn’t adapt his expectations accordingly.
Predictive coding that develops into dangerous stubbornness says, “these things have never happened before, so they can’t really be happening now.”
Besides expecting the positive results that Pharaoh attributed to the Egyptian gods, he also anticipated the negative results of losing his cheap slave labor. Economic realities dictate that, if the cost of labor rises, the price of goods goes up, and therefore inflation runs rampant.
Pharaoh, due to the vice-like grip of his predictive coding, could not envision the possibility that Moses’ God could actually defeat—or even bless—Egypt. To receive a blessing, The Egyptians needed to jettison Hapi, Osiris, Ra, and the rest of their menagerie of gods and embrace Yahweh. But Pharaoh’s predictive coding-induced stubbornness just wouldn’t allow him to imagine such a possibility.
Pharaoh’s hard heart, however, didn’t have to be a foregone conclusion. “To sum up,” reflects Susan Krauss Whitbourne, “the brain’s constant search for sameness can be highly adaptive,” and that search “for novelty … can help pave an even more adaptive path toward tuning into new experiences.”
For Reflection
Connecting: Do you have an area of your life where you’d say you were “gun-shy”? What experiences created that sense of hesitancy for you? Can you see situations where you could move past that reluctance?
Sharing: How is it that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart? Did Pharaoh really have no freedom of choice in the matter?
- God needed Pharaoh’s stubbornness to demonstrate heaven’s power over Egypt and bolster the Israelites’ faith
- It wasn’t God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart, it was Satan; God, however, willingly accepted the blame
- Every now and then, God needs a patsy—like Pharaoh or Judas—to fulfill prophecy
- This is an example of “absolute power corrupts absolutely”; Pharaoh’s power went to his head
- God’s statement “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart” (Exodus 7:3) is descriptive rather than prescriptive; God simply states the fact that Pharaoh will never relent, no matter what God does
- Other:
Applying: Have you ever bumped up against the “we’ve-never-done-it-that-way-
Valuing: Can stubbornness be a good thing in your life, as in, to stubbornly refuse to give in to temptation? How can you tell when your stubbornness is constructive, or destructive? Does it help to discuss such situations with a trusted friend or pastor? Prayerfully determine to seek God’s will in all situations, even when it goes against your own predictive coding.
~ Chuck Burkeen
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