Too often I only think of sin as the bad things I do. Certainly this does capture a good amount of my sin. But there is also the sin that is much harder to quantify: the sin of omission. The things that we ought to do, but do not because of our sinful natures. I love this quote on sin:
“The Bible presents sin by way of major concepts, principally lawlessness and faithlessness, expressed in an array of images: sin is the missing of a target, a wandering from the path, a straying from the fold. Sin is a hard heart and a stiff neck. Sin is blindness and deafness. It is both the overstepping of a line and the failure to reach it—both transgression and shortcoming” (emphasis mine).
Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.
When I am honest with myself, my sin of a hard heart is far more rampant than any other type of sin.
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It was over a month ago when I learned that a close co-worker of mine was leaving to take an incredible position in another state. I can still remember the meeting when she told me and a few others.
Me and my hard heart were shocked and sad but I didn’t show it. Oh, no way. To show compassion and sadness would be a little bit too much for me to still feel like a hard worker and a man.
So I went back to my office and got right back to work. Knowing she was leaving only gave me more work to do, so my hard heart got busy quickly.
I look back on that day and that meeting with disgust. Did I do anything completely wrong or sinful? Not really.
Did I do what I ought to have done? Of course not.
And in reality, I think that is when we sin the most.
