Stuck on Repeat: God’s Fix for Thick Skulls and Stony Hearts
Repetition grinds on you—but what if it's a powerful tool in faith and parenting? (Holy Hump Day! #10)
Repeating yourself can drive you nuts—whether it’s the third “What?” from your friend, or a kid ignoring simple instructions yet again. Parenting feels like a Shorts video on loop every time you have to remind your kids of the same rule.
But as irritation shoves out clear thought, we forget—even God repeats Himself, and it’s not because He’s annoyed.
The Bible says He is “slow to anger” (Psalm 103:8), yet His wrath—the flood, Egyptian plagues, exile, Judgment Day—sticks in our minds like a bur. The dramatic moments grab attention, but they’re blips in history compared to centuries of patience filled with warnings and promises.
God waits through centuries of human corruption, cruelty, and idolatry between the judgment events. Throughout those centuries, He sends messengers with warnings long before the crisis of judgment. They also come with promises of hope and restoration. The pattern repeats. If the long lead-up of warnings lead to judgments without fail, then we should also take the promises and the hope seriously.
God must repeat himself because we are like our children. We often hear what we want to hear. We ignore or distort the rest. Repetition is part of human nature. It’s the bulk of “how the world works.”
So, for those of us who have caught enough of God’s messages to join His covenant, He instructs us to also repeat ourselves, as He does.
Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth. Deuteronomy 11:18-21
Repeat To Yourself
Faithful Jews took this literally. Many still put strap boxes with Scripture to their foreheads or hands to pray. They still mount a plate on their doorframes with tiny scrolls of the Law inside.
But the first line clearly shows that any physical act is meant to go toward “fixing God’s words in your hearts and minds.”
The best way to do that is study and repetition. Memorization, meditation on Scripture, prayer, even teaching our children are effective ways to wash our minds and hearts in God’s truth.
In Deuteronomy1, Moses demanded that future kings write a personal copy of the scrolls to keep and study throughout life (Deuteronomy 17:18-20)—an order David may have followed in Psalms 1 and 119.
We become good men through this repetition, able to know the good and beautiful habits of righteousness. This applies to warriors, laborers, and wise men alike.
By surrounding ourselves with God’s word, we see more easily the areas where we deviate. Just as counterfeit investigators study thousands of real bills to make it easier to spot a fake, we review God’s reality to be able to spot where we are fake.
In other words, we need the repetition to get it through our thick skulls.
Repeat To Your Children
The Deuteronomy instructions also ask us to wash our children in this repetition. We are to tell the children about what God has said and done, and what it means. But not just once. Tell them at home and when you’re out in public. Tell them in the morning upon waking and in the evenings before bed. This touches all of life.
Multiple times in the Old Testament, God has his people set up memorials of stone. Then He tells them, “…when your children ask, ‘What does this mean?’” then repeat the story of what God did for those he loves.
The stories matter as much as the rules. They get it through our stony hearts that God is not a demanding legalist, but a loving and gracious Savior, and that His commands are for our good.
As a youth minister, I encourage parents to talk about God and biblical events and ideas often. But just as importantly, I ask them to tell their own testimonies to their children.
Kids, especially teens, often see their parents as buttoned up Christians who’ve always been strait-laced, untainted, and unrelatable. It steals their confidence in facing their own temptations. But tell them how God saved their dad or grandpa after years of anger, despair, or addiction—and still helps him fight it—and suddenly grace feels real.
You don’t have to tell your story all at once. Share pieces when they fit. Use discretion. Tell your tale at a level they can understand and that’s age appropriate (e.g. Don’t tell your second grader about your former porn addiction). Repeat when appropriate.
Even a “boring” testimony matters. If you’re following God, He’s worked to transform you. He’s carried you through troubles you partially caused. If you don’t believe that, go back to the last section.
Your kids need to hear about what He’s done and the life He wants us to live. Just as often as you do.
Repeat to God
God doesn’t just ask us to repeat His words. He invites us to tell Him our troubles over and over.
Take Jesus’ odd parable about a widow and a corrupt judge (Luke 18:1-8). The judge doesn’t care what God or anyone else thinks and doesn’t intend to give this vulnerable woman justice.
But because she persists, he judges in her favor, just so the old nag will leave him alone!
Jesus asserts that God will give His chosen ones justice when they cry out to Him. He also asks a pointed question: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (verse 8). In other words, do people have enough faith in God’s justice that they will ask in prayer? Will they be like the widow, asking incessantly for what is right?
Luke’s introduction to the story makes this clear. “Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up” (verse 1).
In our human weakness, this is where older traditions of common prayers and Scriptural memorization can assist us when we don’t have the words. @Rod Dreher recounts in his new book Living in Wonder how repeating the Jesus Prayer dozens of times per day eased the anxiety and stress that were leading to health concerns. Personally, I’ve had seasons in life where one repeated prayer got me through enormous crises or significant life changes. Perhaps I’ll tell those stories another time.
God isn’t a corrupt judge, and my inability to think of new prayers didn’t stop Him from answering. He’s ok if all I can do is repeat a few simple words in weakness.
Just as God repeats His messages for generations and tells us to repeat His deeds and commands to the generations after us, we should also repeat our prayers to God until His timing gives us an answer.
Last Friday, we laughed (I hope) at repetition’s frustrations. Now, we see its power in our lives.
You’ll repeat yourself. It’s inevitable.
Since you’re stuck on repeat, loop truth and goodness!
Have your own stories of God repeating something in your life, or of praying the same thing for months or years? I’d be encouraged to hear about it.
In addition to Imago Dad, Brandon Wilborn writes fantasy with spiritual themes. His current project is a series for young readers about a dog with an imagination that highlights the classic virtues of our Judeo-Christian heritage. But he’s already got a couple of fantasy books and stories available at BrandonWilborn.com
Deuteronomy is a type of repetition of the Law and literally means “Second Law.” It’s not a different Law, as much as a refresh for the new generation.