"Sin? Sin! That's a mighty strong word there—"

"Sin? Sin! You mustn't say that. That's a mighty strong word there. It certainly is a mean looking burden. What makes you call it sin?" Mr. Worldly Wiseman, Enchanted Journey

And such is often our reaction to sin. Sin, is defined as missing the mark, and missing the mark doesn't seem that bad. We are a horseshoe-and-hand-grenade society—if we're close, we're in. Right? But sin is more than missing the mark, it's separation from God, and separation comes in all shapes and sizes.

Recently, I read Hebrews 11:5 and thinking about Enoch who "walked with God" and "was taken up so that he should not see death, he was not found, because God had taken him." Even now, Enoch continues to walk in unbroken fellowship with God. We are created for union and fellowship with God, to walk with Him in the cool of the evening. The mark that sin causes us to miss is not just perfection, it is perfect fellowship with God.

As a Christian our individual sins are not about loss of eternal life, because through Jesus's blood we are redeemed and forgiven, rather it is about broken fellowship with God. Because of this it's important that we know what to do with that "mean looking burden." How do we handle our sins against our Creator and our Father, God?

From our perspective, sin often represents a failure and hits us personally as a blow to our pride. Unless it's an incident where others were involved and we are obligate to confess and repay, we go to our prayer closet where we confess our sins in secret—just like Jesus instructs us. The danger to us is that we are often unwilling to fully and completely acknowledge our guilt to God or to ourselves. It's that pride thing again; if we can place some of the responsibility on a spouse, a friend, circumstances, or the devil, we can share the weight of that "mean looking burden." Having asked for forgiveness for our part of the sin, we bury the incident behind us. But we can't experience God's forgiveness in the areas where we haven't completely accepted responsibility, (like the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-27.)) So God's mercy flows over us until it reaches the dam of our own making and there it stops, leaving the corner of our heart parched and dry, and fracturing our intimacy with God. Our sin becomes the elephant in the room in our fellowship between us and God.

My advice is to mentally fast forward to judgment day when we will each take full and complete responsibility for our failures, and to see ourselves as He see us—unclean. Then fully repent and throw ourselves on His mercy so that our whole selves can bask in His grace and forgiveness and we can restore perfect fellowship.