The Nudge

What is “the nudge”? 

I talk about “the nudge” a lot with my kids. I try to encourage them to listen to it. It’s the urge we all have at various times to do something good, or to not do something wrong. Some people call it the conscience. It is an underlying, pressing feeling we get when we are about to say something mean or hurtful, and we immediately feel that we really shouldn’t say it. It’s that strong but gentle, instant repulsion we have when someone suggests doing something we know will lead to sin. It’s the feeling we get when something sinful pops up on a screen or over the music on the radio and we feel we should shut it off, but all too easily we push that feeling away and keep it on anyway. That’s when we start on the road of validating to ourselves why it is ok to ignore the nudge this time.

Some people call it a “little voice”, some the conscience, but to me, it is a nudge. A strong, quiet push towards good or against something evil. It never correlates to my sinful nature, but rather is at war with my sinful nature. It is always at war with it. It is my sinful nature that responds by telling me to suppress the nudge and to do whatever I want to do. 

My reason, or my sinful nature, quickly give me a list (as long as possible) of why I don’t have to do it, or why it’s silly to feel this way. It could be that someone springs to mind that I haven’t called in awhile, and I feel I should check in on them. But sometimes I suppress it because I really don’t have time. I’ve got so much to do. It can wait. Or maybe I see a new person at church and I strongly feel I ought to go up and talk to them—but I give myself an out because the baby was fussy or they look like they’re about to leave so oh well. Maybe a person says something in a conversation and I immediately feel I SHOULD respond to it because it is not the truth, or they are openly discussing their involvement in sin without guilt about it, but I suppress it because I don’t want to deal with the confrontation. It’s not worth responding to, I say to myself. It won’t make a difference anyway. It’s those times when I’m talking with an atheist or unbeliever and I know I need to get the topic around to Christ because this might be my only opportunity to do so, but instead I take the easy way out and let the conversation stay on mundane things until we part ways. Afterwards I always feel some guilt because I know I should have listened to that nudge. I should not have hesitated. I ought to have listened to St. Paul when he said “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity but of power, of love, and of self-discipline.” (2 Tim 1:7). This is why in my tradition of Lutheranism, we say in our confession of sins “We have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” Both in not doing the good we feel we ought to do, and in doing evil, we sin. 

I’ve told my children to listen to that nudge, and to never let anyone, of any age or any position of power, convince them to go against that nudge. It is not of human origin but from God. Even I as their parent am not in a position to make them go against the feeling of right and wrong. St. Paul writes in Romans 14:23 “If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.”

If they believe it is wrong to do something, they are not to do it no matter what. Even if everyone around them is acting like it is fine. I encourage them all the time to stand strong regardless. They don’t answer to man but to God. I’ve seen them follow the nudge over the years countless times, and it is always a source of joy to me to watch how the Lord directs them. Just one example happened somewhat recently when a girl was swearing at the park in front of one of my daughters (my 8 year old). My daughter was very upset by this. She came to me and told me about it. My daughter is a very shy girl and hates confrontation. She is extremely gentle and sensitive. I sensed that she already knew what to do, but that she was hesitant to do it. I just told her to follow the nudge, and reminded her that she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t feel that she ought to do. I gave no guidance other than that. She thought about it, and ended up going over to the girl and asking her to “Please stop taking the Lord’s name in vain.” She told me afterwards how much better she felt because she had listened to the nudge. She was so happy she listened to it, lighthearted in fact, because she knew that she did what she herself felt was the right thing to do. 

Another example happened just today. My 4 year old was in the bathtub and my mother-in-law had left hours earlier after a visit of about 1.5 weeks. My daughter was playing in the tub with two of her sisters when she suddenly wanted to tell me something. She was beet red in embarrassment and said she was talking to her grandmother about swimming and had she said she could swim well above the water …but she can’t. She can only swim well above the water with floaties. She asked me to call my mother-in-law and to tell her that she lied and to correct it. I praised her for this because this is exactly what we have to learn to do as Christians. We have to listen to the feeling of guilt, and respond. The training for that starts very young, and does have an affect.

Christians will all admit that they have felt this way countless times before. Probably even today you have felt this nudge. I know I have. And I think it is important to teach our kids about this fact and to make them simply more aware of it. Listening to your conscience, or the nudge, is vital to keep from hardening your heart in sin. If you participate knowingly in sin, or don’t prevent it when you feel you should, it affects your heart and your relationship with Christ until you repent of it. Sin is not without affect, and the affect is to draw you away from Christ, little by little. A person who practices suppressing the nudge often enough, over enough years, will eventually kill it. We see examples of this all the time around us: people who lie freely and shamelessly, people who are cruel repeatedly and constantly without hesitation and manipulate others regularly for their own advancement. People who seem to revel in sin instead of being repulsed by it. These people did have consciences once upon a time, but they eventually killed them by putting their sinful nature above God’s law in their hearts. And God eventually gave them over to their depravity and their hearts were hardened completely against it.  

Lord, keep us from this temptation and help us to raise our kids up in you!