Developing Your Moral Inventory (Step 4)

Transcription

1 Do You Have What It Takes To Grow? Bill Hybels (February 15-16, 1992) - Message Text Developing Your Moral Inventory (Step 4) Two years ago following a very intense season of ministry, a friend in this church suggested to my wife and myself that we borrow his boat, down south, and spend a week sailing. We thought that was a great idea, and so we took him up on it and went down. Flew down to the city where he keeps the boat. We took a cab over to the harbor and we threw all our stuff on the boat. Put some food supplies on board. Threw the dock lines off. I started the engine and put it in reverse and, as we were backing out of the slip, I could tell something was wrong with the way the boat was performing. And I'd used the boat before and I remembered it being more responsive to the throttle than it seemed to be this time. When I headed out the harbor and forward and set the throttle where it should be set, I noticed it was turning as many rpms as it should. And I began to see the temperature gauge climb. So I did what I've been taught as a mechanic to do, I thumped the gauges, you know? And I thumped the gauges and nothing happened. And I kept going, but I was aware that something was awry. A little later on, we were heading on toward an island, there wasn't much wind that day, so we had to motor over. I smelled something, and so Lynn took the helm. I went down into the engine room and, sure enough, the engine was overheating. I saw a hose that looked like it was going break and shoot water all over the place. And, sure enough, just as we got to that island, the hose, which is sort of like a radiator hose, exploded and we had problems. Compressing the story: I managed to sort of cripple back to the original harbor. I called a mechanic and I said, "Will you come down and fix this boat?" He came down, spent a lot of time

2 looking around. He fixed the blown hose and he said, "There. Now you're all set." Started the boat up. Threw the dock lines off. Backed out and it reacted the same way! It was sluggish again. I put it in forward. As we cruised out, it just seemed the same to me. And I called back to the mechanic, "Might there be anything else wrong with this boat?" He said, "Well, when you get to your island over there, you might dive over the side and check your prop." And I yelled back one more time, "What do I look for?" And he yelled, "Barnacles." I said, "Okay." Halfway to that island, the tachometer isn't turning high enough rpms, the temperature gauge is rising, I'm thumping gauges, smelling another hose about ready to burst. We got over there, dropped the anchor. And I said to my wife, "I'm going over the side." I put on the snorkeling gear, dove over the side five feet under water and, lo and behold, there were two inches of encrusted performance-robbing barnacles all over that propeller! There was no way that it could spin properly and propel the boat the way it was designed to do it. So, now that I knew what the problem was, the real problem, I got on the swim ladder and tore off my mask, went down into the galley to get the only tool I've ever known how to use, a butter knife. And I got my mask back on and I dove over the side and started chipping away at those barnacles on that propeller. A nasty job. I cut my knuckles up. Blood. Had to fend off maneating sharks. I'm lying. I'm lying, you know. But after I got that prop all cleaned off, then when we left to go to the next island. Boy! Did that boat perform. Rpms were right, temperature was low, nothing wrong in the engine room, didn't blow any more radiator hoses. Had a great time. I remember thinking: I wonder what would have happened if we had tried to go that whole week, on that whole weeklong cruise, if we hadn't known that there was a "root problem"? I wonder how

3 many times I would have been thumping those gauges, going back to the harbor, making the mechanic wealthy, and he would have been content to just fix hose after hose after hose. That would have been a disastrous vacation! Senseless repetition without finding the real problem. Do you know what we're talking about today? We're talking about getting at the real problem in your life and in mine. In week one of this Twelve Step Adventure, we said, "It's time that all of us 'fess up. All of us have a problem. Your problem might be different from my problem, but each of us has a problem that makes our life unmanageable." So we said, "What's your problem? What is it that makes your life crazy? What's the problem you can't solve?" A lot of different problems were admitted to. Let's say someone said: "My problem is overspending. I've been doing it for years and it's backed me into a corner. I'm drowning in seas of indebtedness. The future looks bleak. My problem is overspending and my life has become unmanageable." Step two said that you'd better look to a Power greater than yourself to restore you to sanity. And step three, last week, said that you've got to turn your will over to God, as you understand Him, and cry for help. But step four says that we're going to take searching and moral inventory of ourselves, in order to find out, in order to get at that collection of "character barnacles" collected on our propellers that is producing the problem that we owned up to in week one. You see, whatever it was that brought you here, whatever problem you thought was the real problem, is probably the symptom of the real problem, which is underneath the surface of the water, which is a collection of character defects. Unless you deal with them, admit them, label them, confess them, think about them. Unless you get at those, then, whatever problem drove you here is going to keep occurring, reoccurring, occurring and reoccurring.

4 There was a time in the history of God's people where deception sort of found its way into the collective consciousness of God's people. God would bless His people and they would say, "Yay, God!" And then they would go out and dishonor God with their worship, their relationships, their finances and their ethics. And God would send a prophet to confront them and challenge the people to tear their garments, as a symbol of repentance before God. So prophet would come and say, "Tear your garments." And the people would go, "Whoops!" Rip their T-shirts a little bit, and go right back and dishonor God with their worship, their relationships, their finances and ethics. This went on and one, until one day, a prophet named Joel was sent by God to confront the people. He gathered the people together and he said, "Listen up! Today God does not want you to tear your garments. God wants you to tear your heart, because you don't have a garment problem, you've got a heart problem. The root of your problem is deeper than you think it is!" Fourth step people say: "I want to stop the senseless repetition of the self-sabotaging behaviors that I'm engaging in. I'm tired of this! I'm tired of it. I am willing to put on snorkel gear and go over the side and see what in the world is causing the root of my problems. What is down there? What collection of barnacles is encrusting themselves on the propeller of my life that is going to create high temperatures and blown hoses and mechanical complications the rest of my life! Let's get at the root of the deal." And that's what we're going to do today. Before we go further, can I ask you again: Do you have what it takes to grow? One reason I love and respect this congregation so much is that history has proven that you do. You knew what was going to be served up today and you're here in record numbers, in video overflow. I don't know where you all parked. I don't want to know, actually. But that's one reason why I love and respect this church as much as I do, because you face stuff. So we're going to

5 try and take the fourth step, and I want to teach you how. You know, the originators of the Twelve Step Program for alcoholics, anyway, suggest looking at a world famous list of "character barnacles." Working through that list, slowly, carefully and honestly, and then comparing your life to that list, in order to provide sort of a grid, or a starting point, for you taking your fourth step. Now after you do that, there are other ways to expand on a fourth step experience and we'll talk about that a little later. Do any of you know which list I'm referring to, which famous list? It's called the "List Of The Seven Deadlies. The seven deadly defects, the seven deadly sins." Five hundred years ago, a dedicated band of religious leaders, after years of human observation, declared these seven defects as the maladies most likely to be at the root of most of mankind's problems. So I'm going to familiarize you with them in just a moment. Ask you to look at them honestly. And I'm going to ask you to see if any of these seven deadlies are encrusting themselves on the propeller of your life. And I'm going to ask you to just be honest. I'm not going to ask you to resolve anything, just to admit some things. Forget about resolving, this is about admitting. The fourth step says that you need to take out a spiral notebook and a pen. And you need to sit down somewhere in a quiet spot, when you have a lot of time, and you need to write some things down. And the writing of these things down is very important, because if you don't write it down, then you cruise through life and do what we're famous for doing: We say, "I may have a few problems. Do you have any barnacles? I may have some, you might." But we never go over the side and really look and really label and really admit and really think through what's going on. When you write it down. When you see your "barnacles" in print and you write a paragraph on them, then you see patterns and connections between some of these seven deadlies, you're going to

6 go, "I really do have a problem and I've got to admit it. I've got to admit it!" Two rules in the fourth step: That you are honest and that you are thorough. So let's walk through the seven deadlies. I'm going to deal with the first one quite thoroughly, then the next six very rapidly. Is it any surprise to you that what leads the list, what leads the procession, is the first deadly defect called pride? Pride is often called the basic breeder of human difficulty and the biggest obstacle to human healing and growth. No wonder the Bible contains many warnings about it. No wonder Jesus bristled every time He saw pride manifested in someone. One day Jesus said, "Two guys went out to pray. One guy puffed out his chest, stood in a public place and he said, 'Dear God, am I glad that I don't have problems like the rest of the people in the world do!'" Jesus said, "Another guy went off to the side, couldn't even look to heaven, stood in a corner and said, 'Oh, God, you know how many problems I have! And I need your mercy to deal with them. Please be merciful to me a sinner.'" Jesus said, "Be like the second guy! The first guy is in denial. Be like the second guy. He's humble. He's honest." Got any pride growing on your prop? Before you say, "Who, me?," realize that pride comes in many variations. It usually starts early on in our lives. Pride is what motivated us to fire God in the first place and place ourselves in the CEO seat of our existence. Pride is what said, "Who needs God? Who needs God's Book? Who needs God's rules? Who needs God's church? I can handle my life, thank you!" And that was the beginning of real trouble for us and it was motivated by pride. Pride is what motivates us to project images of adequacy to people in our lives, even when the truth is very different on the inside. You're adequate, right? I mean, I'm okay, you're okay, we're all

7 adequate. Right? That's pride. Pride is what motivates us to project an image of superiority, an image of supercompetency, when that does not correspond to the reality in me or you. Pride is what tends to make ourselves want to be big, even so in doing, we make other people around us feel small. But no matter, we feel big. We feel better. We feel smarter. We feel richer. We feel prettier. We feel stronger. And that's what counts. And that's pride. Pride is what motivates us to deny or discount the seriousness of our wrongdoings. "Oh yeah, I got a little problem here, it's nothing serious." Pride is what will keep many of us from actually doing a fourth step. "Hahah, I don't have to do that nonsense. My life is going fine, thank you." Pride is what powers up our justifying machines and our blaming machines. This is the subtle side of pride. Pride whispers to the overspender: "Well, you deserve all the good things in life and besides, you only have three credit cards backed up to their limit. There are loads of people in lots worse shape than you." Pride whispers to the overworker: "You're just one of the few remaining fired-up workers left in our country's workforce. I mean, you do Tokyo proud. You don't have a problem, you just live in the wrong country." Pride whispers to the controller types: "If you don't organize and orchestrate everyone else's life around you, who will? It's your Christian duty." Pride whispers to the drinker and the adulterer and the pornographer: "You can stop whenever you want. Don't panic. Don't start working these steps, for heaven sake, you can stop any time you want." Pride whispers to the wealthy: "The poor deserve the squalor they live in; they aren't willing to work like you work."

8 Pride whispers to the wrongdoer: "It's not your fault! It's that bozo boss of yours. It's your parents it's their fault. It's that misfit mate you got hooked up with. It's that crowd your kid is hanging out with, it's not your fault." Pride turns the best of us into blaming buffoons and we are oblivious to it! We're thumping gauges and fixing blown hoses and we don't know what's driving it! Pride pleads for us to stay strapped in the CEO seat, even if our lives are caving in, our relationships are breaking down, and our morals are falling apart. But we're going to stay in control. No raising of a white flag over our fort! No way! Got any pride? When you dive over the side and look, look pride "barnacles." I looked this week, I've got some pride. A friend said to me recently, "Bill, sometimes I fear the only teacher you really listen to is pain!" I knew what he was saying and it wasn't pleasant to hear it. You see, humble hearted people learn easily from a wide range of teachers. Prideful people cast off a lot of good counsel because, you see, they know better. They know better until they hit a wall at 60 miles an hour and then they grudgingly admit, "Well, one of them got by me, I mean, I missed one. It rarely happens; it'll probably never happen again in my lifetime!" And everyone around scratches their head and wonders why anyone would live that way, because it's just prideful. When you are doing your fourth step and you're putting your snorkel on and you go over; and you look at your prop and you see some "pride barnacles"? Don't try to resolve them, just admit them. Say, "Yup, they're there." Say to yourself: "You know, I find it hard to be a person among peers. I find myself always wanting to be bigger than, better than, stronger than, richer than, more competent than, I'm always doing that and I'm always justifying and I'm always rationalizing and I'm always controlling. I'm blaming. I do that stuff all the time." That's pride, friends, and you

9 might as well admit it. And if you want a little extra credit work here, peel pride back a little bit and see how much of it is driven by fear. Why do you want to be bigger than? Because you are terrified at being smaller than or less than. Why don't you want to own up to your stuff? Because you are terrified, you're terrified at having to say, "I'm wrong; I'm guilty; I don't know what to do." It's better to just power up the justifying machine and blow it by, right? Look for pride. Now we'll move rapidly through the remaining ones. The next is anger. Twelve-Steppers are concerned about resentment, I mean the toxic kind of stored up anger that really wreaks havoc in someone's life. Got any of that growing on your prop? And before you say, "Nope, nope," be careful, you might. When I was in college, I think I owned the world's smartest dog. Now it's all evened out, I now think I own the world's dumbest. But, back then, I had a little dog that I trained, and that dog was so smart! He could do a wide array of tricks, but the one I liked the best is that I taught this dog how to growl at the mayor of the town. We lived just off the main street and had a little patio and we'd sit, the college guys, you know. We'd sit out on that patio with this dog there. And townspeople would walk by on the way to work, and when the mayor would come, I taught that dog how to growl at the mayor. We didn't like the mayor because he enforced a curfew that we thought was too restrictive. But that dog could pick the mayor out of eight or ten people walking. And when the first people would walk by, he'd wag his tail and be real friendly. Then he'd see the mayor and he'd go, "Grrrr!" and lay his ears back. In fact, I won some money on a bet. I taught the dog how to growl at the mayor's name. The mayor wouldn't even be around. We'd be downstairs playing with the dog and I'd say, "Mayor So-and-so," and "Grrrrrrr" and he'd start looking around. It's an achievement. I

10 almost flunked out of school, but I had a smart dog. Now, whose name could I say right now that would make you lay your ears back and start growling with anger about? I'll bet if I knew you better, I could say a name and you'd start growling on the inside. And you'd say, "Boy! I'm going to get even with him! He wronged me. She wronged me! She offended me! That guy, I'm going to even the score with him some day!" Okay? Friends, resentment is trouble. It's much bigger trouble than you think it is. You think you can nurse that stuff without it distorting your relationships and attitudes, but you're wrong. It can't be done. Which is why the Scriptures tell us in the book of Ephesians: "Deal with your anger before the sun goes down," because if you let it go underground, if you store it up for a long enough period of time, it is going to infect and poison your attitudes and distort and ruin your relationships. You might not even be consciously aware that you are doing that, but other people will see it and smell it and feel it and they'll be pushed away by it. And you'll be scratching your head, saying: "Why doesn't my relational world work? Why can't I get this marriage off the dime? Why can't I get along with my kids? Why do people at work shy away from me?" You don't realize, resentment is at work, and it's running its course, and it's making a lot trouble you are not even, maybe, aware of it. The fourth step says: Put on the snorkeling gear and go over the side and check for it. Find out if there are some names that make you want to growl. What's that all about? When did it start? How did it happen? Did you play a part in it? And when is it going to end? It takes courage to face that, especially, I find, among dedicated Christians, who often equated anger with sin, you see, they don't want to be sinful, so they'll bury anger even beneath the level called sin and say they don't have it, but a lot of them do. And it causes a lot of trouble. Again, when you look for it, don't worry about resolving it and all that. Just, the fourth step says, "Just admit

11 it." Say it's there. The next one is greed. And this one is difficult to discern sometime in our culture because it's so common. But how many of us wrench our lives and our relationships out of shape in order to attain more than our reasonable share of life's goodies? More than we need. More than we can even use or enjoy. But we wrench our lives and our relational worlds out of shape in order to attain more than our lifers share of goodies. I remember talking to a stressed-out business man, one time, who was wiping out his marriage and his kids and his own health was suffering. And I asked him why he was keeping the pace that he was, and he said, "Well, because I've got business going pretty good right now and I've got six deals that might all go my way, and if they do, I'm going to hit the jackpot!" And I felt sort of a leading from God to ask him the question, I said, "Well, what if you only focused on bringing in two of those deals? Would two be enough to keep your company on solid financial soil for awhile?" He said, "Well, yeah." I said, "Then, why don't you just shoot for two, because the difference between two and six seems to be what's driving you mad. It seems to be what's tanking your marriage and ruining your health and alienating you from the kids." I remember, he looked at me quizzically and said, "Now wait a minute. You're telling me to not go after every opportunity? You're telling me to settle for a reasonable amount of life's goodies? Nah." I remember talking to another business guy I used to work out with at a local health club. A stock broker. Made a real good living. But he oftentimes would get real high and then crash, lose a couple hundred thousand, then get up and then crash. One day after I worked out, I see this guy with his face buried in his hands. I sat down next to him and said, "Tell me about it." He looked at me. You know, he looked like he had been through a wringer. And he said, "Bill, you're a Christian. Tell me this: I can go downtown,

12 I've got a pretty good system worked out. I can go downtown and if I just show up and pay attention to what I'm doing, I can make five thousand dollars a week, fifty weeks a year. I can make a quarter of a million dollars just showing up and doing my job." He said, "But I can never stop there. I mean, five isn't enough. It's got to be eight. Then I shoot for ten. Then I shoot for fifteen. Then I shoot for twenty. Then I get a big hit. Then I take a big hit." He said, "What's the matter with me?! Everyone I know would cut off their right arm to live on a quarter-million a year. What's the matter with me?!" I said, "It's the same thing that's the matter with a lot of us who earn a lot less. It's greed. Just wanting more and more and more than our reasonable share of life's goodies and being more than willing to wrench our families, our marriages, our health, wrench our lives out of shape in order to get it." Got any "greed barnacles" growing on your prop? Some of you are saying, "Nope!" And you are right, you don't. One good thing about taking an inventory is you figure out what barnacles you don't have down there. Others of you are going to look down there and say, "Yup, I got 'em two inches thick. It's all over my prop." You know, you ought to ask someone who has had to live with a greedy spouse. Or ask a kid whose dad or mom devotes his best energies to the acquisition of yet another piece of seldom worn jewelry or another seldom used toy, and they'll tell you, "It's nuts! It's just insanity!" It's true. It is. And what's driving it is you've got a greed barnacle growing that prop and you've got to admit it. The next is lust. Now listen. It's going to get very quiet in here. And I've got to give you a quick bit of counsel: Don't shift nervously in your seat right now or someone will think you've got the problem! So sit real still. Okay? You know, for the past couple of weeks we have watched Mike Tyson's trial, and then we saw the video of him hanging around a

13 Miss Black American Pageant, propositioning woman after woman after woman after woman for sexual favors. Not a relationship, mind you, just a romp in the hay. I'd say Mike Tyson has wrenched his life out of shape due, I think in part, at least, to "lust barnacles" beneath the surface of the water. But let's not just keep peeking into Mike Tyson's window. Let's look in the mirror. Lust is our normal sexual instincts gone a bit haywire. Lust is the lifting the sexual dynamic out of the overall context of the loving relationship and pursuing that as an end in itself. Lust is reducing a whole person to a body to be played with for my selfish pleasure. And some of us know all too well how quickly lust can wrench our lives out of shape. Some of us have lied to our employers and employees and spouses and friends, in order to sneak off places to address our lust. Some of us have purchased magazines and rented videos that have just made the lust problem worse; and after that we had to hold a good "shaming party" for ourselves. And after we beat ourselves up for a long time, the following week we went out and did the same thing! Some of us flirt with people and make suggestive comments to people, just to assess the love-quotient in them. See if we can get something going. Some of us date for lust and people get hurt badly. Some of us marry for lust. Some of us ruin our marriages because of lust. Some of us ruin our lives because of lust, but strangely enough, we have never one time sat down with a spiral notebook and a pencil in hand and just admitted to ourselves that we've got some barnacles called "lust" growing on our propeller and it's causing a performance problem. It's making things overheat, blowing hoses, causing mechanical difficulties So, take a look and admit it. You know, we terrified, aren't we? We are terrified to admit the truth about ourselves. We terrified that, maybe, our sexual instinct has left that normal healthy range. We terrified, "Oh, what is God going to say about this if He finds out?"

14 He knows. And He wants to bring, get this, grace. He wants to bring grace and understanding and power and healing to your situation, but He's not going to do it. Healing can't start until you admit that you have the problem. Step four isn't about resolving anything. It's just about admitting the truth about yourself. Would you look at that one? The fifth one of the seven deadlies is envy. There's a story told about a merchant who envied the success of his primary competitor in the town to the point that it became a nearobsession in his life. One day a silver-lamp genie appeared to this envious merchant and said, "What do you want? I'll give you whatever you want. One little caveat, though, whatever you ask for yourself, I intend to give in double measure to the man you envy so much." And it only took the merchant a few seconds to reply, "Make me blind in one eye." And you say, "That's sick! That's sick that he'd make a request like that, so that his competitor would be completely blinded." You're right, it's sick and some of us have that sick barnacle on our propeller and it drives us to obsess on someone. And it causes us to hyper-compete with someone. And it causes us to say destructive things about someone. And it even causes us to wish the worst for someone. If you ever catch yourself fixating on someone else's beauty or position, or spouse, or personality, or accomplishments, please know that those are not harmless daydreams. I mean, they pour toxins into the stream that runs underneath the surface of your life. And it often intensifies your resentments and feeds your lusts and exaggerates your fears in ways you aren't aware of. Envious people are hard to develop intimate relationships with, because they've just got that eye-of-envy elsewhere and you can't ever get the full focus of that relationship going. Anyone need to do a step four and look for envy? You don't have to resolve it. You've just got to say, "I think I have that problem." Now, if you don't, cross it off. If you do, just admit it and then say: "How does it manifest itself? How does it wrench my life out of

15 shape? What does it make me do or say that's destructive and sinful?" Just two more. The sixth one is gluttony and the seventh one is sloth. How about we skip over number six, gluttony. Huh? I mean, I'll make a deal with you: If I agree not to talk about it, will you promise you'll be honest about it? Ahh, you're noncommittal, so let me say just a couple things about it. Overeating can either be a "broken hose," meaning, it's symptomatic of a collection of deeper problems; or it might be a "barnacle" in and of itself. Just a runaway desire for consuming more food and drink that your body actually needs. It can be either. But, in either case, it's something you better pay attention to, because overeating often leads to obesity and, usually, "land mines" are detonated all along that path. Land mines like shattered self-esteems and the loss of self-respect and the regular practice of self-shaming, serious health risks, and the rest. We could go on. So I'll stop at this point, if you'll promise to write down, honestly and thoroughly, what's going on in your life, if there's any degree of overeating going on. What's going on? Is it a symptom of something? Is there something deeper driving it? If you are overeating, why don't you admit it? You don't have to resolve it, just admit it. And then the last one, sloth. You say, "Oh, I'm glad we're ending with an easy one, you know, because there's no slothful people in a congregation like this. To live in our community, to drive here in a car, to support your kids, you've got to work and you've got to work hard. Right?" Well, what we're concerned about with number seven is not just how hard you work, but what you're willing to work hard at. Another way of putting it: You might work hard at making a living, but you might fail to work equally hard at learning how to live. Learning how to live lovingly. Learning how to live sanely. Learning how to live responsibly. Learning how to

16 live in community with your spouse, with your family, with your friends and with God. As hard as it might be for some of us to admit, some of us have the problem of "selective slothfulness." That is, there's an area of our life that desperately needs attention. Everybody knows that. Everybody sees it. We know we ought to address that one area, but we say, "Ahh, I'll tend to that.. tomorrow." Tomorrow never comes. So that destructive behavior pattern goes on. The self-defeating attitudes go on. Crippling relational distortions go on. Troublesome character defects go on. Spiritual deception and sin goes on. And we go to work and work hard at making a living and we never really learn how to live. And what's worse, some of us neglect the sobering reality of preparing for our death and the ensuing Day of Reckoning! "Tomorrow," the man says. "Tomorrow," the woman says, "I'll figure out how to get right with God." Tomorrow never comes. The Day of Reckoning comes and someone winds up in a Christless eternity and they were only a prayer away from a totally different destiny! Selective slothfulness can be eternally expensive. Got any slothfulness barnacles on your propeller? Are you going to take the fourth step? Are you going to take the fourth step? Some of you are going to say, "I might, tomorrow." Huh? Selective slothfulness. Time has gone, but I want to ask you one final time: Do you have what it takes to grow? Again, you don't have to resolve anything, even attempt to resolve anything this week. All you have to do is make a fearless admission of some things. Can I give you a closing hint about something? It's going to take approximately the same amount of energy to stay in denial, you know, to keep saying, "I don't have a problem." To keep justifying your problem. To keep blaming your problem on somebody else. It's going to take approximately the same amount of energy to do that as the energy required to take a spiral notebook and a pencil and to sit down and to say, "I've got to admit some truthful things about myself." So,

17 it's up to you. What are you going to do? I hope you'll garner the courage to take step four this week. Let's stand for closing prayer: Father, thank you for inviting us to come out of the shadows of our denial and deception into the light where we admit what's true about ourselves. Thank you for calling us to go deep, not just to tear the T-shirts and go, "Oops!" but to rend our hearts. To dive over the side and see what's really, to see what defects are driving most of the problems that are coming to the surface of our lives. Thank you that, when we bring those things out in the open that, you don't point a penetrating finger of condemnation, but you say, "I have grace and healing power for it, if you'll ask for it." Thank you for Jesus Christ and His death on the Cross that pays the penalty for our sin. And I pray that all of us will find forgiving grace and healing grace in Him. For Jesus' sake. Amen.