reason #6 on the lent list...

Reason #6 not to sin.......

Because in time my sin always brings heaviness to my heart.

Surely I can't be the only person who's experienced this. The urban dictionary defines a heavy heart like this: "When your heart is weighted down by sorrow." I wonder if oftentimes the reason we stay so busy is because if we pause too long and are too still, our true heaviness of heart will be revealed. Sometimes we operate at such a helter-skelter pace that even where there's no sin involved, we become a bit numb. We can certainly become spiritually numb and begin to court sin and realize that in time, our hearts have grown heavy with the weight and sorrow of it. This is why confession, repentance and forsaking are so critical to the health of our hearts. As if there was any doubt about why we wouldn't want heaviness of heart, I've included several scriptures below that point to the amount of emphasis God puts on the condition of our hearts.
 
Proverbs 4:23 "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life."

1 Samuel 16:7 "But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart."

Jeremiah 17:9-10 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings."

2 Chronicles 16:9 "For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him..."

Psalm 51:10 "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

Galatians 4:6-7 "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."

Psalm 28:7 "The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, And with my song I will praise Him."

Ezekiel 36:26 "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

Matthew 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."

Deuteronomy 5:29 "Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!"

Psalm 40:8 "I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart."  

Maggie, my oldest, has a very tender conscience. She tends to start confessing things to me long before I would've found out about them and just can't sit in her sin for very long before it's eating her up. I would love to say that this is exactly how I operate with God. I mean, I do get convicted of sin immediately upon committing it, but I am also very good about rationalizing, excusing and explaining. Instead, I'd like to become an expert at the confessing, repenting and forsaking that I mentioned earlier. That's the key to a heart that is not weighted down by the sorrows of sin.  

peace.