Scratch, scratch, scratch. I lifted my fingers from the keyboard and listened, but the noise had stopped. I refocused on the sermon I was writing and clicked away at the keyboard, trying hard to put in print the thought flitting through my head before it escaped into the ether of ever-shrinking memory.

Scratch, scratch, scratch. There it was again! So soft any conversation, any music, any noise above the faint whir of my computer would have squelched the sound. But I was completely alone in my office and I could definitely hear…something. Was it a mouse?

That’s when I remembered. We’d been having problems (since solved you’ll be happy to know) with water-bugs in our building. That’s probably not their real name, and the pest-control man assures me they aren’t cockroaches. But I was picking up three or four a day in the hall near my office, crunching them between my fingers in a paper towel, and tossing them in the trash. Apparently, I hadn’t squeezed the last one hard enough. He was trying to climb out of the trashcan and make a break for the baseboards.

I decided to let him scratch while I warmed up lunch. (Don’t judge! Would you go digging through your trash to re-squish a bug? I didn’t think so). That’s when this thought hit: How like conscience is that bug in the trashcan. How easy it is to miss a sound like that in the constant noise of 4G life.

The Scriptures show us the power of a keeping a clear conscience: great boldness in any conflict.[1] It also warns that failure to keep it clear can lead us, among other things, into meaningless babble and shipwrecked faith.[2] But the quiet required for reflection and confession is hard to come by these days. We have to be intentional about it.

So, if a water bug was scrambling around in the back of your conscience, could you hear it?

[1] 1Peter 3:13-16

[2] 1 Timothy 1:5 & 19