“I need to tell you about the toilet,” Tim, our host, told us. My friend Greg (our missions pastor) and I were visiting our church plant ministry in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Greg and I were bunking in the basement of his home, and we were sharing the bathroom. Tim had been down with a cold, so he had not had an opportunity to get the toilet fixed.

He demonstrated the process for us. When you flushed the toilet, after it filled up it would slowly continue to overflow with water draining into the toilet bowl. We would have to take the top off of the tank and gently tap a protruding screw on top of the float mechanism. Once you lightly tapped it, the water would shut off.

The first night I woke up to background noise, not fully cognizant of where I was. My twin brother had spent a week with us the previous week, and they listened to a sound machine at night, so at first I thought that was what I was hearing. Then I realized where I was and figured out where it was coming from. There is something about the sound of running water that triggers a natural urge to head for the bathroom (I’m only one paragraph into this and I’m already “woke” and “triggered”). Greg and I are pretty easy to train, so we took the top off the tank, waited for it to fill, tapped it, and went back to bed.

Sin in our life can become like that overflowing toilet. If we are honest with ourselves, we know when we have committed sin, most of the time even before we intentionally commit the act. From that point on, there is that background sound of the Holy Spirit telling us we need to “tap” the confession and repentance button.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” —1 John 1:9 (ESV)

The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He will not raise His voice. It is important that we pay attention and act on it. Why? Because if we don’t, we become so accustomed to the background noise that we no longer hear it. Like my brother’s sound machine, it lulls us into a spiritual slumber. God told Isaiah that the day would come, speaking of the Holy Spirit, when “your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left” (Isaiah 30:21).

Let me put that into guy talk. Paul tells us in Ephesians that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (6:12). You and I are on a “tag team” in this spiritual wrestling match. The Holy Spirit is our partner, and the reality is that He is far stronger than we will ever be.

The enemy is seeking to hammerlock us into a place where we are bound by sin and no longer effective in the battle. That voice is the Holy Spirit, our tag-team partner, whispering “tap out” to us so that He can get in the ring and break the enemy’s grip on us. Our mistake is in believing that we are strong enough to break free on our own. We are not strong enough to break free. If we could break free from sin, the Cross would not have been necessary.

We are in the ring every day, and we know when we have committed sin. Let us respond to the still small voice and acknowledge our weakness and the tightening grip the enemy has on us before it is too late. Let us “tap out” before we are choked into spiritual ineffectiveness, no longer in the match. Don’t let the enemy flush you down the drain!

What say ye, Man of Valor?