When is the last time you bore the weight of your sin against another person–not just acknowledged it, but sat in it, listened to it from another perspective–and owned it? That is the biblical concept of confessing your sin to one another and praying for one another that you may be healed (James 5:16). This is the effective, fervent prayer that avails much.

Compare this to the husband who refuses to hear or acknowledge sin against his wife and children. They bear not only his weight against them, but the weight of their sin against him–the resentment, the battle not to return evil for evil–and the grief. The grief of what was, what could be, what never will be. Loss of self-respect, dignity, imaging God in volition, emotion, expression, and responding in worship.

Men who refuse to hear or acknowledge how their sin has affected others, cannot expect forgiveness or healing. It is a spiritual principle–those who want healing must hear others. Those who want a clear conscience, freedom, and grace cannot have freedom and lie against the truth (1 John 1).

He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)