Escape lanes ∙

Escape lanes ∙

Cling to your faith in Christ and a good conscience. Some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked. – 1 Timothy 1:19

Romans 2:14-15

14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves,
15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them,

A group of young adults in their twenties was returning from an invigorating weekend at a mountain retreat. The resort, perched 5,500 feet above the world below, had been a place of joy and memory-making. But as the sun set and evening shadows stretched across the winding mountain road, their descent became anything but routine.

The driver, a novice in handling mountainous terrain, gripped the wheel nervously. His hands were clammy, his knuckles white as he was “riding the brakes.” The brakes pushed beyond their limit, gave out. The car was at the mercy of gravity. With no means to decelerate, it started accelerating down the steep grade.

It was a disaster waiting to happen. The impending sharp turn was one that the car couldn’t handle, threatening to send it careening off the road and potentially causing severe, if not lethal, injuries to its occupants. Just a single mistake or a fraction of a second could send their vehicle tumbling into the abyss.

Then, it happened.

Panic gripped the driver as he wrestled with the wheel, helpless against the car’s momentum. And then one of the passengers shouted, “An escape lane! Take it—NOW!”

Understanding the perils associated with downhill driving, the highway authorities thoughtfully provided escape lanes that serve as safety nets. They enable runaway vehicles with brake problems to stop safely. These lanes are long and filled with deep gravel or sand and provide a safe stop for cars, trucks, or buses that have lost control. When a vehicle veers into an escape lane, its kinetic energy dissipates slowly in a controlled manner.

The driver veered toward it. The tires sank into the deep bed of gravel and lost their forward motion. The runaway car slowed until it came to a stop, jostling the passengers one last time before everything went still.

The silence that followed was heavy, but it wasn’t fear anymore—it was relief. Hearts still pounded in their chests, but their lives had been spared, and all because the escape lane had been there at the right moment.

Drawing a parallel, the Father has equipped every child of the King with their personal escape lane – the conscience. The human conscience, an innate moral compass, is both a warning device and a way to escape danger. Whenever our feelings, thoughts, or actions veer off the right path, our conscience, our moral compass, is wired to warn us when danger is near.

When our feelings, thoughts, or actions begin hurtling toward harmful decisions, our conscience alerts us. It doesn’t scream, but it’s persistent—a red flag waving, a quiet whisper calling us to stop and check the path we’re on. It guides us, offering a chance to veer off the dangerous course and find a place of safety.

Once the conscience warning light goes “off,” it’s up to us to heed its warning. When the conscience flashes, we can choose to adjust our course and decelerate, or we can barrel onward, vainly hoping to avoid catastrophe.

In life, the road ahead can twist and turn unexpectedly. Our experience may falter, and momentum can build. However, just like an escape lane that helps save lives on a mountainside, our conscience serves as an inner guide, slowing the destructive downward momentum when everything feels out of control. Whether dealing with a runaway car or a hasty decision, relief is available to those who choose to slow down and heed the warning.

REFLECT & PRAY

“Be the master of your will and the slave of your conscience” (Hasidic Proverb).

Father, thank You for providing me with a conscience. How many times has it saved me from serious danger? Please help me to be increasingly sensitive and receptive to its warnings. Strengthen my resolve to do what is right.

INSIGHT

What is a conscience, really? It’s something intangible—an invisible yet powerful guide that lives within every one of us. Think of it as an internal compass, constantly evaluating our thoughts and actions against the moral standards we hold. It categorizes them, marking each one as right or wrong, helpful or harmful, good or bad. Essentially, the conscience serves two roles—it’s both the prosecutor and the judge within the courtroom of our minds.

The word “conscience” comes from the Greek term syneidesis, which stems from the verb synoida. This word breaks down into two parts: syn, meaning “with,” and oida, meaning “know.” It literally means “co-knowledge” or “to know with.” It describes a kind of “perceptive awareness,” “an inner knowledge of right and wrong.”

The conscience is like a referee in a sport like basketball or football. It is constantly on alert for fouls or penalties, that is, violations of the rules of the game. Its judgments are based on the set of rules that it has. Our conscience’s calls are based on the moral “rulebook” we carry inside, one that may vary slightly from person to person depending on upbringing, experiences, and beliefs. But like any referee, the conscience can make mistakes. It’s not infallible. It can be silenced, ignored, or even programmed with faulty data, leading it to make the wrong calls.

The Creator magnificently designed this inner moral guide with incredible precision, but it’s up to us to nurture and maintain it. Like any tool, it’s subject to wear and misuse. A conscience can become desensitized—seared—through repeated violations. It can be muffled by excuses or drowned out by louder voices. It’s powerful, yes, but it’s also vulnerable to harmful persuasive influence.

Billy Graham once said, “Most of us follow our conscience as we follow a wheelbarrow. We push it in front of us in the direction we want to go.”

It’s a sobering reminder that while the conscience is meant to guide us, too often, we manipulate it to suit ourselves. The challenge is to respect our moral compass, allowing it to guide us rather than manipulating it to justify our choices. By doing so, we can ensure that our inner sense of knowledge directs us toward what is truly right and good.

The conscience is a lot like a thermometer. A thermometer indicates when you have a temperature but does not lower it. It simply measures and indicates when something is off. Similarly, your conscience doesn’t define or create moral standards—it measures your thoughts and actions against the values and rules you’ve internalized over time. It’s there to alert you when a moral discrepancy exists, much like a thermometer tells you when you have a fever.

Think of it this way—every human being is born with a built-in sense of moral responsibility, something philosophers call a sense of “oughtness.” It’s that deep, internal awareness that some things are right while others are wrong. Some cultures might describe this as “the inner voice,” “the voice in one’s heart,” or “how you know what’s right and wrong.” But here’s the catch—while we’re born with the capacity for conscience, it starts as a blank slate. That is, it is not programmed.

From the moment we’re born, our conscience is shaped and programmed by the world around us. It absorbs values, norms, and standards from our family, culture, experiences, and beliefs. These learned rules become the guidebook against which our conscience measures our actions. When we violate those standards, the conscience reacts—it signals something is out of alignment, pointing out the gap between what we’ve done and what we know we ought to do.

The Bible captures this beautifully in Romans 2:15, which says, “Their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” Here, the conscience is described as a witness to our inner life, acting as both a prosecutor and a defender, depending on how well we’ve aligned with the values we’ve internalized. It’s a “reflective mechanism,” as Douglas Moo puts it, one that measures how closely we’re conforming to the norms we’ve adopted.

The conscience doesn’t just accuse us when we’ve strayed. It both condemns and commends. It is as though each of us has two different opposing identities inside. They evaluate the same things from different perspectives. One disapproves while the other affirms. The conscience both accuses and excuses. This can be expressed, “sometimes their thoughts say, You did wrong, and sometimes their thoughts say, You did right” (UBS).

But like a thermometer, the conscience only measures—it’s up to us to act on its signals, to make the adjustments needed to align our behavior with what we know to be true and good.

The story of the Two Wolves is a well-known legend often linked to the Cherokee people. In this story, a grandfather uses the image of two wolves fighting inside him to explain his inner struggles to his grandson. When the grandson asks which wolf wins, the grandfather replies, “The one you feed is the one that wins.”

In other words, the conscience is like an inner voice that tells us what is right or wrong. In simple terms, it’s like a switch that can be either OFF or ON.

Biblical principles help shape a good conscience. Every child of the King should cultivate a mature, godly conscience. A godly conscience is our spiritual and moral escape lane.

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© Dr. H 2025