Be Still

In the stillness, in a darkened room, things can become clearer. Brighter.

The greatest sins are not the things I do, but the things I do not do.

I do not love enough, I do not give enough compassion, I am not still, I do not wait upon the Lord - or anything. I need to pray because I don't know what God's up to, but I do know that I do not have enough love, compassion, patience.

You could look at my life and see the glaring sins - the things I do that are traditionally recognized as sins. You could make a graph, a chart and see the steadiness or irratic nature of each of these. Some are just the way I live.
But that is the way that man would like to see sin - by the tangible. The things understood.

This is not a judgement on all mankind, it is recognition of our common desire to make sense of the world - we try to orient ourselves in this massive place from infancy on. The pieces that we live outloud and outside of us are so much clearer - but the inside is not.

Someone said in class once that imagine if we wore posterboards to church on Sundays revealing our true sins - the one's we conveniently leave out, or intentionally do, the ones that we hold with shame or reluctance, or that we have accepted are things we will do that are between us and God but know/fear the objection of others. The pieces of our lives that may not separate us from God (the definition of sin, right?) and the things that are notably considered un-Chritian could count too.

But the greater sins I commit each day are what separate me from God. I look away from poverty, I close my eyes. I choose not to love. I judge my classmate, my colleague, even my neighbor. I judge a friend or loved one. I don't forgive - myself or another. The list of what separates us - me & God - is not a tangible. And it is not finite.

While there are many concrete things that do - right now I get that the things that keep me away have much more to with with my unwillingness to dig through this clutter, come down to the calm, the stillness and start and know God.

I finally get it, I don't want to (or need to) understand God - I want to know Him.

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Disclaimer: I know all sin is considered equal, but that is not how it feels or is treated. It is easier to get caught up in the obvious and tangible sins etc.