Day 204: Conscience

 DAY 204

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty    Sunday 4 October 2020

Conscience

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. - The Book of Common Prayer: For the Sunday closest to 5 October.

His conscience pursued him over his acts of adultery. He sat in my office and poured out his heart through a constellation of emotions: guilt over what he had done to his wife, his family and himself; anger at himself for having made such foolish choices based on the deceitfulness of sin; remorse or regret for having done what he did; and a repentant heart, confessing to the Lord against whom he had ultimately sinned as weeping he read out loud and prayed Psalm 51:1-17, the on-target penitential prayer of a man who committed adultery many centuries ago.  

Conscience – one of those great words from Latin easily unpacked: the prepositional prefix “con” meaning “with,” and the noun “science” meaning “knowledge.” The conscience is where in every human being without exception the God of Creation has shared a measure of “knowledge with” us, so that universally certain actions are understood to be wrong: lying, stealing, killing, adultery. “They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.” Romans 2:15. Clear or guilty, conscience is a two-edged witness within.

When we do things that are contrary to God’s will our conscience tells us so, and unless and until we deal with it we will be plagued by “those things of which our conscience is afraid.” It is an act of grace by the Holy Spirit that convicts us of sin, and the only thing more troubling than a guilty conscience is a conscience seared so badly by sin that it no longer recognizes it within.  

Reflective question: What is your conscience telling you – will you listen and follow through? 

Reflective Scripture: 1 Timothy 3:9 – “…hold the mystery of faith with a clear conscience.”

Reflective hymn: “I Want a Principle Within” – Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

From thee that I no more may stray, no more thy goodness grieve,

Grant me the filial awe, I pray, the tender conscience give.

Quick as the apple of an eye, O God, my conscience make;

Awake my soul when sin is nigh and keep it still awake.