Repentance and the weight felt beyond ourselves.

Sin is a befuddling thing, it is inherent from birth, it is passed from father to son, we have a predisposition to run head long into it, we fail to confess it enough, and we need to confess it regularly to God as well as others. It is one of the greatest mysteries. We can commit it as an act and yet the final judge who sees all, can and will look on us as if we have never sinned if we are sealed with the blood of his son. Sin is a befuddling thing.
One of the most befuddling things about sin that has taken my thoughts by storm and has left me reeling, crying and aching internally is this. How much time in prayer has been wasted in necessary confession of sin, due to willful actions of sin that are in direct opposition to God, instead of using that time to pray for the lost souls of others? Now before you mark me as a heretic let me clear this up.
Confession of sin is a mandate from God, we must confess our sin to Him, to one another and to the one to whom we have committed the sin against. This is a must for any kind of real repentance and reconciliation to actually take place. We must also wake in the morning with the intent in our heart to nail up and crucify our sin nature, knowing that if we leave it to reign free; it will wreak havoc in our life within moments of waking. Now consider how momentous; in all the wrong ways, our willful disobedient sin is, it takes away precious minutes and moments in the midst of prayer. Confession of sin is needed and we must confess it and it can take a bit of time to really work that out in the midst of prayer. In my busy crazy life how many hours have been used to confess sin that I knew was direct disobedience. Instead of saying no to that sin from the beginning and using that time in my prayer time to pray for the lost souls of others, to go before our creator and plead for the souls of man, to cry out for works to go out into the harvest.
Lord teach me to continue to confess, but more importantly help me to realize that the weight of sin goes way beyond my immediate sphere of influence, it impacts the far reaching edges of the world, it effects others I may never see. Give me the wherewithal to say no to a sin and then take the time that would have been used in the confession of that sin to pray for the freedom from sin of others.