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PROGRAM D-8429
Is your conscience healthy? A healthy conscience performs a needed function in our lives. But when your conscience goes on auto pilot and never gives you a break; when that inner voice nags you night and day, regardless of what you do; when you continually feel that something is wrong with you, then you are dealing with a sick conscience. Not a corrupted or polluted one necessarily, but one that is unhealthy and destructive—feeding you messages that are lies and emotions that are debilitating.
I am coming to understand that when I am preoccupied with myself, something is wrong. A sick conscience, an overly active one, will keep you self-focused. Thinking about yourself all the time will lead you into misery of one kind or another. Much of the world’s counsel, whether professional or otherwise, encourages people to be self-focused.
But every principle of Scripture teaches us to be God-focused and others-focused. Listen to this passage from Isaiah 58:
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. (Isaiah 58:6-9)
How do you find healing for a sick conscience? You ask God to give you a heart for others, to lead you to those who need your help, and help set other captives free. Then your light will break forth. Then your healing will come quickly and you will produce works of righteousness.
For the ten long years that I walked away from my Lord and followed the path of my own heart, I was so self-focused that it makes me sick to think about it now. But once I returned to the Lord and began to follow his will for my life, I very quickly became involved in the lives of others. I know that caring about and for others brought healing and joy to my life, and it kept me so busy that there simply wasn’t a lot of time to think about me. What a blessing that was and is.
Getting out from under the stronghold of an overly active conscience brings the freedom that God wants you to have.