4 pounds of sin

I have been in and out of different doctor's offices all summer. They have mostly been specialists, so rather than actually measure and weigh me, they have merely asked "How tall are you?" and "How much do you weigh?". I have given a fairly accurate answer. I say 5'4", when in all actuality, I am 5 feet 3 and 3/4 inches tall. I don't think anyone really cares about that last quarter inch except me. In fact, I am probably boring you... 

 (Let me preface this with, "until this week, I haven't owned a scale".) When they ask how much I weigh, I gave a generalized idea of how much I hoped I weighed. It was still about 4 lbs more than I wanted to weigh, but I had weighed that at one point in time at a doctors appt. so I figured it was still true. Well, last week I went to a doctors appt. where they actually weighed me and the number was 4 pounds more! That is never something a woman wants to hear, so I was complaining to my friend about it. She just laughed at me. I believe her exact quote was "Bethany, go cut your hair. You'll probably lose 4 lbs right there."

  For some reason, that has stuck with me all week. Four pounds can look very different to different people. She has lost more than four pounds this year, and has a lot of be proud of. My four pounds, quite rightly, seemed silly to her. My four pounds are everything to me, but only to me. They are nothing to her. 

 I have been thinking about perception this week. My perception, my friend's perceptions, and most importantly, God's perception. My four pounds look exactly the same to God as someone else's 40 pounds. In fact, they look exactly the same as 400 pounds. Can you tell I'm not actually talking about physical weight anymore? 

 Sin hangs over our head like a weight. It is extra pounds that we carry around with us. We look at the people around us and we see their sin. That murderer in jail has 4000 pounds of fat hanging on him - disgusting. The cheating husband is obviously ugly - at least 40 lbs overweight. My little white lie to make myself look better - surely that is only a pound or two, right? 

 I might see sin in degrees. You might see sin in levels. But God doesn't. In His eyes, sin is sin. End of story. All sin separates us from his holiness. He sees it exactly the same when a Jihadist blows up an entire village in His name, or a minister damns someone to hell for hearing God differently then them, or when I grumble and complain that Andy has left his socks inside out, yet again, in the laundry. "Holy war", unholy judgement, bad attitude - I would see them as different. Obese, Overweight, Needs a quick work out. God sees them all exactly the same. 

 4 lbs. 40 lbs. 400 lbs. It's all the same. Sin is Sin. The only thing you can do with it is give it to Him.