The tug of conscience (1)

Have you ever farted in a public place? I mean one of those silent but potent effusions that leave everyone wondering who just poisoned the atmosphere. Did you have an unsettling feeling that everyone knew you were the culprit, but they were simply too civil to confront you directly? That prickle of anxiety, the sudden urge to look innocently around the room, and the quiet sweat on your brow, betraying the most visceral, low-stakes demonstration of human guilt. It reveals a fundamental truth about human nature: even when no formal accusation has been made, an inner witness immediately takes the stand.

There were two brothers who were a source of perpetual distress and embarrassment to their parents because they were always stealing things and were notoriously troublesome around the neighborhood. After trying every discipline method, lecture, and punishment they knew to get their sons straightened out, the exhausted parents decided as a last resort to take them to their pastor for spiritual counselling and possibly deliverance.

The pastor decided to conduct a one-on-one session with each boy, beginning with the younger one. For a long, heavy while, he sat face to face with the boy across a large wooden desk, letting the tension fill the quiet room.

After what seemed an eternity of silence, he asked, looking straight into the boy’s wide eyes: “Where is God?”

No answer came. The boy merely blinked, shifting in his seat.

Looking very tough and adopting an uncompromising stance, the pastor repeated the question with deliberate firmness: “Where is God?”

The boy, though still silent, was now visibly shaken, sweating, and terrified by the solemn weight of the interrogation.

Frustrated at the boy’s stubborn refusal to engage in meaningful conversation or offer a confession, the pastor angrily raised his voice, slammed his hand on the desk, and screamed: “For the last time, boy, I ask you: Where is God?”

To his absolute amazement, the boy suddenly jumped out of his chair, bolted past him, and ran all the way home without stopping. Getting home, he took the stairs two at a time and made straight for his brother’s room. Panting heavily, he slammed the door behind him and blurted out: “We are in big trouble!”

“And what is that?” the elder brother replied, looking up with concern.

“God is missing,” said the younger brother in a desperate whisper, “and everyone, including the pastor, thinks we stole Him! I know I didn’t, but did you?”

This humorous tale illustrates a profound truth about the heavy weight of a guilty mind. When our hands are dirty, every neutral question sounds like an accusation, and every innocent inquiry feels like an impending arrest.

According to Uthman Dan Fodio, conscience is an open wound; only the truth will heal it. Scriptures echo this psychological reality in Proverbs 28:1, telling us that the wicked flees when no man is pursuing him, but the righteous is as bold as a lion. Guilt breeds paranoia, driving people to run from shadows and to construct elaborate lies just to preserve a facade. Conversely, transparency is the absolute strength of credible leadership and integrity. Those who live their lives in the open fear no unexpected exposure, no investigative leaks, and no surprise audits. My favorite way of putting it is that the man who has no cupboard has no space for keeping a skeleton.

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Paul the apostle spoke extensively in his writings about maintaining a conscience devoid of offence—a life lived so cleanly that it remains subject to public scrutiny without any fear of what might be the ultimate outcome. He lived with the confidence of someone whose inner motives aligned perfectly with his external actions.

The prophet Samuel in the Holy Bible demonstrated this exact same fearless transparency when he stood before the entire Israeli nation at the end of his long tenure and challenged them openly: “…whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hands have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it to you.”

To which the entire gathered nation replied without hesitation: “You have not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither have you taken anything out of any man’s hand.”

That is a foundational leadership lesson that desperately needs to be taught to every modern public servant! Imagine a world where civil servants, politicians and public office holders could stand before their constituents with such unassailable integrity that no committee of inquiry could uncover a single hidden shady deal. Jesus Christ exemplified this ultimate standard when He boldly declared that the prince of this world came to Him and found nothing in Him—no foothold of dishonesty, no corruption, and no hidden compromise.

Conscience connects us directly with our deepest spiritual essence. It is an internal sanctuary that transcends intellectual cleverness. Even people who claim to be atheists have an undeniable consciousness of the extra-terrestrial, a quiet awareness of a reality higher than physical matter. However, because they do not understand how to process this innate spiritual awareness within their materialist frameworks, they label it chance, coincidence, luck, or providence.

Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Atlantic, openly claims to be an atheist, yet in a moment of extreme mortal crisis when he was caught between life and death while attempting to cross the Pacific Ocean from the USA to Japan in a hot-air balloon, he confessed to sensing a profound spiritual presence. He acknowledged feeling that he and his co-pilot were being actively preserved by the presence of guardian angels. He vividly recounts the experience in his book Screw It, Let’s Do It: “I don’t believe in God, but that day I felt as if a guardian angel had entered the capsule and was helping us along.”

Moments of extreme danger often strip away our intellectual posture, exposing the spiritual core and the moral compass we so often try to ignore during peaceful times.

Conscience operates as the ultimate umpire between morality and legality, standing firmly between what is merely lawful and what is genuinely needful. Something may be technically legal under human law, yet entirely immoral under the law of righteousness. When the quiet voice of conscience is stifled, societal values immediately become subordinated to personal convenience. When that happens, there are no longer moral absolutes; truth becomes relative, and principles become negotiable bargaining chips.

Under such conditions, brutish survival—which underpins the law of the jungle—prevails. The line between good and evil is not only blurred but often entirely obliterated. In such a moral atmosphere, true national or organizational development becomes sporadic, artificial, and ultimately unsustainable, because trust—the bedrock of all human progress—has been shattered.

Core values are the compass of conscience. When conscience leaves the driver’s seat in any individual, community, or corporate organization, core values are always the very first casualty. When the plug of conscience is pulled in leadership, there is no longer any effective rein on executive excesses. Corporate governance issues are routinely disdained, fiduciary duties are brazenly neglected, and ethical principles are flouted without a second thought… continued

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!