How not to spot sin

It is fascinating reading Jonah to see how the prophet of God blatantly ignores God's call to him and in fact sets off in the opposite direction.  But what would you expect to happen next?  We expect God to stop him, to put people across his path who convict him, who challenge him we certainly don't expect him to get to Joppa and board a boat happily sailing for Tarshish.  Maybe we expect Jonah to be wracked with guilt or under intense conviction because he is deliberately disobeying God, but where do we find Jonah "Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep."  In fact Jonah is so sound asleep that the captain has to wake him to tell him about the storm and get him to pray.  No sleepless night for Jonah, no tossing and turning struggling with guilt about his actions.  Jonah deliberately ignored and disobeyed God's word to him and yet everything seemed normal, he felt fine.  That ought to warn us that how we feel about our life and the circumstances of our life are not always a good barometer of how we are dealing with sin in our life. 

Sometimes we can be comfortable with sin and remain unconvicted, so what is the remedy, how do we avoid that happening.  We must carefully and forensically examine our hearts in the light of the bible.  God has given us his word which his Spirit takes and applies to our hearts but we must walk in step with the spirit, we need to take time to expose our hearts to the Spirits prompting, convicting and moving.  We must not assume that I feel fine therefore everything is fine, and we must be continually questionning whether what we think is normal and ok is what God our loving heavenly Father says is best.