While gathering her supplies at the end of class, my fellow first-grade student unknowingly dropped her “amazing” block eraser on the floor and walked out of the classroom. I figured, “Finders keepers,” scooped it up, and slipped it into my pants pocket. I savored the thought of erasing with reckless abandon using that beautiful rubber block—so much better than the little nub on my #2 pencil that had to be used sparingly.
But like all sin, those thoughts of joy lasted only for a season—in this case, a very short one. Not because someone witnessed it. Not because a classmate ratted me out or because I confessed to my mom. No, the weight came because I knew God saw me. Raised on the Ten Commandments, I understood this was stealing. The guilt and accompanying shame overwhelmed me to the point I could hardly sleep that night.
The next morning, I returned that beautiful eraser to its rightful owner. It was as if a heavy yoke had been lifted from my shoulders. All was right with the world again. My conscience was clear.
I was extremely fortunate to be raised in a family that honored God, where right and wrong were clearly defined, and where character and integrity mattered. Many families in the 1950s and 1960s shared this foundation—Christian, Jewish, Muslim, believers and many non-believers. Society generally agreed on basic moral boundaries.
Looking around today, I sometimes wonder what happened to that sense of guilt. It seems as though many people no longer blush when they lie, cheat, or deceive. Today’s world feels very different from the one in which I grew up.
My brother-in-law, a middle school teacher, witnessed a student stealing another student’s phone and hiding it in his gym bag. The boy denied it.
School policy prevented my brother-in-law from searching the bag, so he escorted the student and the bag to the principal’s office. An hour later, the young thief’s father arrived. When asked if his son stole the phone, the boy again said no. The principal suggested opening the bag to settle the matter, but the father refused.
“That’s not necessary,” he replied. “I believe my son.”
Another example is Gerald who met a woman in the church choir. After several months of dating, he discovered the woman he had been seeing had intentionally withheld major parts of her past. When confronted, she insisted she hadn’t lied because he had never asked the right questions. What struck him most wasn’t the deception—it was the complete absence of remorse. She eventually admitted she attended church only because she enjoyed the music. She didn’t actually believe the Bible was true.
Social media offers countless examples as well. Brazen lies are rewarded with clicks. Deception is celebrated as clever strategy. Destroying another person’s reputation has become entertainment. Truth rarely stands in the way of a preferred narrative.
Going back to Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary sheds some light on the problem. Webster defined guilt as “a moral agent enjoying freedom of will, and capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, and a willful or intentional violation of a known law, or rule of duty.”
The key phrase is moral agent.
The world has always had immoral people, but there was once a clearer distinction between those who knew right from wrong and those who openly rejected it.
Today that line seems increasingly blurred.
Immoral people know better but choose wrong anyway.
Amoral people no longer care whether something is right or wrong at all.
Webster defined shame as “a painful sensation excited by a consciousness of guilt…”
How can someone experience shame if they no longer recognize guilt? How can they value integrity if they no longer value a clear conscience?
I know this isn’t the world God intended.
But why does He allow it?
Why does He tolerate evil when it seems to spread so freely?
At times I’ve wondered why God doesn’t simply remove the evil from the world. Wouldn’t that solve the problem? Wouldn’t society be safer? More just?
Then a friend from Bible study offered a perspective I’d never considered.
He believes the human heart hasn’t fundamentally changed in two thousand years. Technology hasn’t made mankind more sinful—it has simply given sinful hearts a louder microphone. Rebellion began long before smartphones or social media. It began in heaven itself when Lucifer and a third of the angels chose to rebel against God. That is the bittersweet consequence of free will.
His observation immediately brought me new clarity to Jesus’ Parable of the Weeds.
“And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘”
—Matthew 13:27–30
Jesus anticipated the very question we still ask today.
Why doesn’t God simply remove the evil?
The servants wanted to pull up the weeds immediately.
The Master refused.
The weeds would remain until the harvest.
Why?
Because the field was still producing wheat.
For two thousand years the wheat and the weeds have shared the same field. Believers and unbelievers have lived side by side. They enjoy the same sunshine and the same rain. They build families, celebrate birthdays, laugh with friends, and experience heartbreak. Sometimes they even sit in the same church pew.
God’s patience is extraordinary.
Every sunrise is another opportunity for repentance.
Every heartbeat is another undeserved gift of grace.
Every day the weeds remain in the field is another day someone who appears to be a weed may yet become wheat through faith in Jesus Christ.
That includes the dishonest student.
The deceptive churchgoer.
The anonymous person spreading lies online.
And yes…the anxious little first-grader who slipped someone else’s eraser into his pocket.
God could have judged me that afternoon (ok, fine – I was only 6 years old but stay with the point.)
Instead, He allowed my conscience to do its work.
Guilt wasn’t my enemy.
It was a gift.
It led me to repentance. It restored my peace. It pointed me toward the God whose kindness leads us to repentance.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy today is not that people still sin. Humanity has always sinned.
The greater tragedy is when hearts become so calloused that guilt is no longer felt, shame is no longer possible, and repentance is never sought.
A clear conscience isn’t something to escape.
It is something worth protecting.
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