Convicting

So I was sitting in the audiologist's office, watching her adjust my new hearing aids. Since she was taking quite some time, I was glancing about and noticed a tick crawling up my arm.

Wait! What!? A tick!!!!

I shook my arm and the fat tick fell on the floor.
"Quick!" I told the audiologist, "Give me something to catch him with!"
She quickly handed me a long tweezer, which is used to do something in people's ears...not sure I want to know exactly what it does. I snatched the tick between the tweezers. It squiggled and squirmed. I don't know if you have ever tried to kill a tick, but it is next to impossible. You cannot squeeze them to death. You have to cut them up into a million pieces, and then if possible, shoot the pieces into outerspace.

"Hmm," said the audiologist, gazing at the squirmy tick, "Maybe alcohol?"
"That might do it!" I said.
She returned with alcohol and a cup, but then her phone rang, and she was busy talking with the hearing aid manufacturer about how to best program my hearing aid. Meanwhile, I sat there, clenching the long tweezers while the squirmy tick was turning my stomach. I was silently praying, "Just dump the alcohol in the cup already!!!" but my prayers went unanswered.

Finally, about twenty years later, she hung up the phone and slowly poured the alcohol in the little cup. I dumped the tick in. He did a few spasmodic twitches and then drowned, presumably happy.

"Is he dead?" I asked.
"I think so," she said.
"You may want to clean those tweezers before you stick them in someone's ears," I suggested.
She nodded.
We watched the tick a few moments, who still occasionally waggled a leg.

The whole drive home, I felt ticks crawling all over me.

This is what the conviction of God regarding sin feels like for those of you who have never experienced it. It starts small. The first time you understand what a grievous assault sin is on righteousness, it seems like a tiny thing. But that tiny thing won't die in your heart. The conviction of its presence grows and grows, and you want nothing more than to shake it off, kill it, make it go away....but it will not. Soon it spreads and covers your entire being until you feel it spreading like fire across every molecule of your skin. There is nothing left to do but confront it head on, kill it while it is but one tiny thing, and be certain there are no other little sins crouching behind it.

The audiologist finished her testing complacently.
"How does it sound now?"
"Perfect," I said, eager to leave. I didn't know where that tick had come from and I didn't want to meet any more.

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Acts 24:25 

And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.”

John 16:7-11 

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

Lamentations 1:20 

“Look, O Lord, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death.