We’re often much better at recognizing the symptoms in our lives than identifying their source.

We notice the anger that keeps surfacing. The anxiety we can’t seem to shake. The conflict that keeps repeating in a relationship. We see something we don’t like, confess it, promise ourselves we’ll respond differently next time—and then find ourselves right back in the same place.

Maybe part of the problem is that we’re treating symptoms while ignoring what’s happening underneath them.

In Mark 10, the Pharisees approach Jesus with a question about divorce. They want to debate what is permissible. Jesus takes the conversation somewhere deeper. He points to their hearts.

“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law.”

Hard-heartedness is more than stubbornness. It’s the tendency within us to resist God’s direction because we’d rather have our own way. It prioritizes our needs, protects our preferences, and convinces us that we can manage life on our own.

That condition doesn’t only affect marriages. It follows us into friendships, families, workplaces, parenting, and every other relationship we have. External problems often have an internal source.

But Jesus doesn’t simply diagnose the problem. A few verses later, children are brought to Him, and Jesus says something surprising: “Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

The answer to a hard heart is a dependent one.

Children know how to receive. They trust someone else to provide what they cannot provide for themselves. Jesus invites us into that same posture with God—not childishness, but childlike dependence.

That means the goal of following Jesus isn’t becoming increasingly self-sufficient. It’s learning, again and again, to recognize how much we need Him.

So before we focus exclusively on fixing another behavior or resolving another conflict, it may be worth asking what’s happening underneath it. Where have I become stubborn? Where am I demanding my own way? Where am I trying to control something God is asking me to entrust to Him?

Jesus offers something better than symptom management. He invites us to open our hands, soften our hearts, and trust Him enough to lead.

Sometimes faith looks remarkably simple: recognizing that we don’t know the way and reaching for the hand of the One who does.

Reflection Questions

1. What recurring struggle in your life might be a symptom of something deeper happening in your heart?
2. Where are you currently relying on your own strength, control, or wisdom instead of depending on God?
3. What would becoming more childlike in your trust of God look like in one specific relationship or situation you’re facing?