Sparks in the Darkness

Most people don’t live like God is real.

But almost nobody lives like He isn’t.

Even in a world that’s loud with distractions and confident opinions, there’s still this stubborn thing inside us—an awareness that we answer to Someone. We can ignore it for a while. We can drown it out. We can joke about it. But it keeps showing up.

Paul says something like this in Romans 2: even people without the law still show “the work of the law” written on their hearts, and their conscience bears witness (Romans 2:14–15). In other words, you don’t have to grow up in church to know that some things are wrong. You don’t have to read theology to feel guilt. You don’t have to own a Bible to wrestle with meaning.

That inner witness doesn’t save anyone. But it does testify.

The sense you didn’t create

John Calvin opens Institutes of the Christian Religion with a simple but weighty claim: “There is within the human mind, and indeed by instinct, an awareness of divinity” (Institutes 1.3.1).

Some later writers call that the sensus divinitatis—a “sense of the divine.” Don’t get stuck on the Latin. The idea is plain: we are made by God, living in God’s world, and we carry a built-in awareness of Him.

You can see it in ordinary life:

• People who swear they don’t believe in God… but still talk about “the universe” like it has intentions
• People who say morals are relative… until something happens that makes them furious
• People who feel guilty for years over something they can’t undo
• People who chase success and still feel hollow
• People who treat death like the ultimate intruder—because deep down it feels wrong

We don’t all respond to that awareness the same way. Some people get spiritual. Some get cynical. Some get anxious. Some get loud. But the fact that we react at all says something.

The real issue: suppression, not lack of evidence

Romans 1 doesn’t let us pretend the main problem is “not enough information.” Paul says the truth is there—and we push it down.

“They suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18).

“What can be known about God is plain… because God has shown it to them” (Romans 1:19).

And creation itself is always speaking: “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).

Yet “although they knew God, they did not honor him as God” (Romans 1:21).

That’s the uncomfortable part: the deepest problem isn’t that people can’t see. It’s that we don’t want to see—not as Lord, not as Judge, not as the One we’ll answer to.

And if you’ve ever watched someone mock Christianity with a little too much energy… you’ve probably seen what Paul is talking about. Sometimes laughter isn’t confidence. Sometimes it’s deflection.

Augustine admitted this about himself: “You were within me, but I was outside myself; and there I sought you” (Confessions 10.27). That line lands because it’s true. We run, but we don’t run into a blank universe. We run inside God’s world.

Conscience is a gift… and a warning.

This is why Paul can say humanity is “without excuse” (Romans 1:20). The witness is real: outside us in creation, and inside us in conscience.

But conscience doesn’t only point upward. It also points inward.

It exposes us.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). But if you only have fear—if you have holiness without grace—you don’t get wisdom. You get hiding. You get excuses. You get anger. You get denial. You get religion-as-performance, or religion-as-a-joke.

Here’s the sickness underneath so much of the modern mood: we know God is holy, and we love sin anyway.

The gospel doesn’t “invent” God—it clears the fog.

Christianity isn’t mainly about taking spiritually empty people and giving them a brand-new idea called “God.” It’s about God confronting people who already know enough to be accountable—and then saving them by grace.

The good news is not: “Try harder. Listen to your inner spark.”

The good news is that God has acted in Jesus Christ to rescue sinners.

That’s why this matters. Conscience can accuse you for a lifetime and never heal you. Creation can testify to God’s power and still leave you condemned. What we need is not more moral pressure. What we need is mercy.

Herman Bavinck said, “Religion is the testimony of the human spirit to the divine Spirit who witnesses to it” (Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1). Left to ourselves, that testimony gets twisted. We trade God for substitutes. We turn guilt into self-justification. We turn longing into idols.

But when the gospel hits home, the Holy Spirit does what we can’t: He turns guilty knowledge into repentance, and fear into faith, and rebellion into worship.

Why it matters right now

We live in a world that tries hard to explain everything without God. But people are still haunted by right and wrong. Still hungry for meaning. Still restless. Still reaching.

The image of God hasn’t been erased (Genesis 1:26–27). The conscience still speaks. The world still declares His glory. And the gospel still calls people home.

That’s what I mean by “sparks in the darkness.” Not a saving light inside us—Scripture won’t let us say that—but a stubborn witness that we belong to God… and a Savior who restores what sin has darkened.

—Zach Strange

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