The backslider in heart, filled with his own
ways, and a good man shall be satisfied
from himself.
The backslider in heart, filled with his own
ways, and a good man shall be satisfied.
I'd very much rather talk on any number
of subjects I could think about, rather than
to talk about the problem of backsliding.
It is age-old and it's universal, and
the Bible has much to say about it.
Therefore, I think it right and proper for
you, something of what the Bible tells us,
both of warning and encouragement, backsliding.
Now, the causes of backsliding, or maybe first
I should define the word before I go
any further, for some strange reason which I
cannot at the moment identify, become a funny
word in the day in which we live.
Even ministers like to say that being Baptist
they couldn't backslide and have a laugh out
of it.
Or they like to say, being Methodist, I
believed in backsliding and practiced it.
All that kind of corny, lame humor has
grown up around the word backslide, backslider, backsliding,
those terrible words.
So whatever silly and thoughtless men may do
with this word, remember one thing, God never
jokes about it, never takes it lightly.
Backsliding, I think, came from the back where
it said, Israel slideth back like a backsliding
heifer.
The thought was, and I've seen it as
a lad on the farm, as an animal
started up a slippery bank and got partway
up and then lost, lost track, control, and
traction, they call it, and slipped back.
After many plunges and efforts did they get
up?
Sometimes slide back and can't get up at
all.
Well, the man of God with no intention
at all of being facetious, said that Israel
was like the animals that he had seen
trying to climb up a slippery hill.
They went and worked hard at it and
pushed and then slid back as many steps
as they had gone up, and eliding Israel
to this backsliding heifer.
Now the causes of backsliding are mainly two,
being the fickleness of the human heart.
It would be a wonderful thing if you
and I could remain what we were, but
it would also be a most damning thing,
how sad our state by nature is.
The man was lugubrious and tears stained him.
Nevertheless, said truth that was as true as
the throne of God, our state by nature
is sad, and if we could not change,
we would be automatically doomed to remain in
that sad state while the ages spend themselves.
But our ability to change our mind from
worse to better is our hope.
The call of God in repentance is a
call from worse to better.
And if we could not go from one
state to another, we would be frozen.
We would be morally static and would be
damned.
But because we can move, and it is
possible to go from one moral state to
another, we can go from bad to good
and can get right with God even though
we were wrong before, can get good though
we were bad before, can become holy and
unholy before.
But that same ability to go from one
moral state to another and to change our
mind is also not the cause of backsliding
but the technique by which it operates.
Now, we switch from one...
You watch that, watch it in children.
When they're tiny, they have one ideal.
When they're nine or ten, they have another.
When they're in their mid-teens, they're twenty
-one, they still have another.
We switch from one interest to another.
And people can do that in themselves.
And this changing from one fad to another,
shifting from one thing that interests us to
another thing that interests us, all this is
at least a reason back of the probability
or ability of backsliding.
The only thing we really stick to as
a rule is something that nature or circumstance...
We have to eat and drink and sleep
and do all that nature forces us to
do or that some strong instinct within us
forces us to do.
As long as the human race goes on,
there'll always be love and marriage and all
that because it's a deeply rooted instinct in
the human...
And there'll always be a desire for food
and always be a desire to protect ourselves.
These are instincts.
They lie in human nature.
And the result is we stick to something
that we are able...
We're able to follow it because we don't
have to do anything to follow it.
But anything that requires attention and careful painstaking
labors, we tend to turn away from it
and usually do turn away from it if
we can.
I just wonder if we had a count
on the North American continent of all the
people who took or started to take and
didn't go through with it.
I'd hate to embarrass you fellows by asking
the men in this congregation to stand.
All of you who started out, I took
six lessons, six piano lessons.
Yesterday I spoke to a group of Convention
of Church Musicians.
But anyway, I didn't continue with my piano.
And how many more of you are like
me?
Because it's not instinct with us.
I found no instinct waking me at night,
pushing me toward the piano.
I found no such instinct.
And that isn't in us.
Certain people have something that's so strong in
them that it almost amounts to...
We call them natural-born musicians.
And they'll have some kind of musical expression
no matter what.
And they don't have...
Because it's in them, but it's not in
the most of us.
That's just as sure as you live.
And the result is we don't do what
becomes...
Notice what's painstaking and what isn't pleasant.
We tend to follow what is easy and
golden...
And outside of taxes and certain other duties
that are forced upon us from the outside,
either by nature or by law, we tend
mostly to do what we like to do
and what is natural to us.
And of course that is the fertile soil
where sex-lighting grows.
People under some great pressure of bereavement or
fear turn to...
And for a while go ahead.
But the instinct is not in them.
The instinct is all the other way.
And it's irksome.
The irksome that's reading your Bible and praying,
it becomes a painstaking thing and something that
isn't natural.
And so we turn away a little at
a time until shortly we're gone back.
And if we had every man in Chicago
stand and every woman...
The evangelistic pressure had made some step toward
God.
And now today have forgotten all about him,
and they're drinking and smoking and living.
There's no God in heaven above.
I tell you, it would be a shock
we wouldn't get over if we could see
them all in some park maybe standing like
so.
Tier on tier, or rank on rank, I
think is a better military word.
But if you were shocked and horrified at
how many sometime have made a step toward
God or maybe even met God, but because
serving Jesus Christ is contrary to nature, our
state by nature is sad and it does
not miss.
So the fickleness of the heart turns us
away, and people do backslide like the heifer.
And then there's the inherent evil of the
human heart, the cause of backsliding.
The whole constitution of a human being is
against...
Now there are two things you must remember
here, that if man were what he originally
was, if man were now what we originally
were, made in the image of God without
sin, then it would be perfectly natural to
serve angels in heaven above.
And the seraphim beside the throne have no
trouble serving God.
They've nothing in them to pull them away
from.
They're made to serve God.
And when they're made to serve God, they're
doing a thing as natural to them as
a duck when it goes to the water
does a thing natural to her.
A bear in the wintertime curls up in
his den, he's following his nature, and the
holy angels above follow their nature to serve
God.
And if you and I were what we
should be, unfallen and without this taint and
stain of sin, we would be able, and
the average would come natural, would flow out
like a fountain from the pressure beneath.
But we're fallen.
I wrote and said that whoever got down
on his knees and said, Our Father who
art in heaven was doing the most natural
thing in the world.
Somebody wrote along, I am not responsible for
people when they don't read what you write,
all of it, or read something into it,
or if they're too dumb to understand it,
I'm not responsible for that.
So I don't worry too much about it.
The quarter said, get rid of me.
I was a modernist because I said when
a man prayed, if the truth were known,
he is doing the most natural thing in
the world, but not by his fallen nature,
but because it was made in the image
of God.
When a man turns his face toward that
which anciently he did in Adam, and which
he should be doing now, but which sin
has robbed him of the power, so both
my critic and I are right.
Sin made our nature so when we pray
it's not natural.
We have to walk all the accumulated ages
of sin if we say our Father who
art in heaven.
But if that sin hadn't come, anything to
override, we'd simply raise our voices, and like
the bird we'd sing God's praises without effort.
Turn away from God and cool off, and
go back, change their minds, or at least
change their hearts.
And it all begins with the heart, the
backslider in heart.
Now that's not there by accident.
The backslider in heart it says.
Remember that backsliding begins with the heart.
People blame other circumstances and say, it's my
home life, it's the place where I work,
it's the school, or it's because I was
ill, or it's because I had to work
too much, it's because I didn't have time.
Those are external things.
Backsliding begins in the heart.
The backslider in heart shall be filled with
his own ways, and always it begins with
the heart.
And the order of discovery is this, first
God knows it.
God knows when my heart's cooling off better
than before I do, and then the individual
finds it out, and then the church finds
it out, and at last if he continues,
the world finds it out.
That's always the order.
The world finds out a man has backslidden
and gone back on his faith.
The church knew it before the world found
it out, and the individual knew it before
the church found it out, and God knew
it before the man found it out.
But it all begins in the heart.
Now what is the heart?
Well, he's one who's losing interest in the
things of God, and gradually going back to
the old ways, or new and more refined
sins than the ones he used to do.
But the point is he's losing interest, he's
cooling off.
The fires of his heart are not as
hot as they were a few weeks or
months or years before, and his love toward
God is cooling off.
This, I say, is backsliding in heart, and
he's losing interest in communion with God.
If you don't do as well as you
used to, then the only kind and honest
thing I can say is that you're a
backslider in heart, because as much as you
loved before, you will love to pray as
much as you loved to pray before.
But if you do not love to pray
as much as you used to, then what
conclusion can I arrive at?
I don't like to say these things.
I wish I didn't have to.
But what conclusion can a man arrive at?
If a doctor takes a blood count and
finds the blood count way down, what can
he say?
He says, this man is not in a
good state of health.
Or if he runs other tests and finds
that the man's health is bad, what honest
thing can a doctor do?
Pat him on the shoulder and say, I'll
meet you on the golf course Saturday.
Everything will be all right.
Bill, keep cool.
That doctor would be.
And what a traitor to his own profession.
There's only one thing for him to do,
and then the findings.
And if the findings say that he's not
well, that his state of physical health is
poor, the doctor says, I don't know that
he'd have to go into all the details
and tell it in Latin, but he ought
to tell him, well, but you're not in
as good a shape as you ought to.
Listen to me now.
You take this prescription, or do this, or
go to Florida, usually, they say.
Or do something for yourself.
But the point is, the honest man will
tell a patient if he finds, runs tests
and finds that their point of health.
Now, if you do not love prayer as
much as you once did, now what can
I do about it?
I didn't do that.
I hope I didn't.
If I'm an honest physician, I can only
say to you, you better go to the
specialist.
There is a specialist who deals.
Your temperature is way down.
And if it is, there is one that
can heal you.
I can't, but I can tell you where
there is one.
And they're losing of our individual communion with
God.
Read your hymns in the old hymn book
and see how sometimes they, how once they
loved the fellowship with God.
Communion was sweet to them.
But we've got so many things now.
And to crowd out communion, we have radio,
television, newspapers, magazines, and all around over the
country, and long trips and all that.
And the tendency is to, I insist, are
only external aids to the devil.
They're not the causes.
The deeper than that, it lies in the
heart.
And when a man is backslidden in heart,
he tends to get a little bit bored.
If a glowing earnest Christian bores you a
little, if when you're in a little group
drinking the coffee, put it together, or your
soda, and somebody brings up the thought of
God, if it bores you a little or
embarrasses you, you'd better look to your own
heart, my friend.
Seriously, to your own heart.
Because whenever religion bores us, we may be
sure that we're wrong inside.
Now I'd like to qualify that.
I want to be as honest and realistic
as possible.
So I will say that some explain religious
bores.
And they have a way of introducing religion
into the most impossible situations, and do it
without any spontaneity whatsoever, but only because they've
been trained to do it.
Like trained seals, they bore an archangel.
But if an honest, happy-hearted Christian turns
and talks about God, and it bores you
or embarrasses you, you're in the wrong company.
And if you're bored with spiritual talk, not
religious chit-chat, that'll bore anybody.
But if you're bored with spiritual conversation on
the wrong inside of your heart, then the
best thing to do is to remember it
and admit it, acknowledge it before.
And then I notice another symptom of this
backsliding in heart is the developing of a
critical spirit toward other preachers.
If he isn't a Paul Reese, why, some
people, they want to hear, I don't know
what they want to hear.
God knows I never could quite figure it
out.
I guess it was an archangel with David's
harp.
Playing good on this man gets up and
the poor deliverer in a few blunders tells
us his simple heart out about God and
the things of God.
God can say he's all right, he's all
right, and he'll come in small numbers, but
no zeal or enthusiasm unless he's an extraordinary
preacher.
I tell you, we could well afford to
humble ourselves and listen to anybody that had
anything to say.
Anybody at all.
I think we ought to pray, God, give
me a heart so sensitive that I'll get
help from anybody, except, of course, from the
hypocrite and the pretender.
Nobody can get help from them.
Nobody can get help from the self-exploiter
and the man of, I don't want to
get help from them.
I don't look to the devil for my
help, but any honest man of God.
Look when Spurgeon went to the Methodist church
and sat in the balcony in a stormy
night and only went in because he wanted
to get out of the storm.
And the Methodist class leader who was tall
rose and exhorted the congregation to look straight
to Jesus and be converted.
And says, I went in there a sinner
and when I went out I could have
sung there's a fountain filled with blood with
the best saint in the church.
And he was converted by hearing a man
who had no reputation, a class leader, if
you please, a layman who was leading a
prayer meeting.
I'll illustrate that truth by a dozen anecdotes
if I cared to do it, true ones
of people who've been helped by the simplest
-hearted people.
And remember and sometimes repeat, maybe a bit
monotonously, of the time I heard a solo
that I'll never forget.
The song, and the singer was not a
high-class singer.
The singer was a long, thin, dried-out
Texan who looked at the sun a long
time and weathered.
His skin was weathered, every part about him
was long.
He would be, he'd have made a good
cowboy if he just had the equipment on.
And his voice was what they call that
is, he could stay on pitch, he could
carry the tune, but it was gravelly.
It was an awful lot of very low
growling static coming in along your radio.
And he had that kind of voice, but
he was a dear Christian brother.
He was from down Texas somewhere and became
an Alliance preacher, a sweet Christian brother, all
that.
And he stood up to sing.
And I knew what was coming because I
knew what kind of voice he had, but
that morning, put his head off and sang,
I've found a friend, oh, such a friend.
He loved me, I knew him.
From 28 years ago and to this day,
when I think of my good old lanky
brother singing, I've found a friend, oh friend,
my head instinctively bows.
I heard something, I heard a voice from
a man who couldn't have sung, we wouldn't
let him sing here.
He couldn't sing anywhere where Christians have any
standards or taste.
But the Holy Ghost, through the voice, a
gravelly voice of a long lean Texan, no
cowboy, just a long lean Texan, wanted to
tell people that he'd found such a friend.
Brethren, we ought to be careful lest we
become too, because the tendency to criticize unkindly.
Now if it's a question of trying to
improve, that's another matter.
If it's a question of trying to push
the standards up and write and preach and
pray and talk and exhort to try to
get people to do things better, to help
the choir to raise its standards, that's another
matter and that's perfectly all right.
But if it's just carping criticism and assaults
the use of it, I don't care to
hear him.
Because if a man writes or sings and
he's a sincere man, then he ought to
warm my heart with his sincerity.
If I'm not backslidden.
And still, we can be in this state
and still keep up appearances.
Oh, if all the church people who are
entering churches this morning who are only going
there to keep up appearances, I don't mean
be hippity.
It's not a deliberate effort to deceive.
No, no, not that.
But shame or duty or fear or social
pressure or something else brings them, they're not
there because their hearts are warm.
They're there only because it should be.
They are where they want to be on
the Sabbath day.
And if all who are thus present in
churches who are nevertheless cooling off in their
hearts or have cooled off and do not
have in their heart what their presence is
to show that they have, many a pastor
would spend the afternoon on his face weeping
between the porch and the altar, crying, Oh,
I've done or haven't done that my people
are in such a condition.
Solomon here has a tragicomic word.
He says he shall be satisfied from himself.
And I've looked that up and I find
it means you get nothing.
That sounds funny, but, brother, it isn't funny.
The backslider in heart will soon get enough
of himself.
Now, how does he get enough of himself?
Well, he gets enough of himself with his
attempts to pray and he finds how heavy
and embarrassing it is to be devout.
He's asked to pray and he tries to
be devout, but his heart is long ago
broken to a ship.
And he's like an instrument that's ready to
be plugged in where there's no power.
And he plugs in dutifully, but I tell
you, he can get enough of that before
very long.
If I was broken with God in my
heart this morning, I'd not come around or
anybody to help me because it's embarrassing.
A man gets enough of that after a
while.
We get enough of our own hollow testimonies.
They're false and the word's dry, and yet
we daren't stop talking because we've got a
reputation for being good Christians.
A lot of people have a reputation for
being good Christians in churches and then they
secretly break with God.
And there is a lack of communion there.
The fires have burned low and they're hardly
able anymore to feel any sense of God
at all.
And yet they have to keep it up
so they may even allow themselves to get
elected to boards and to young people's groups
and choirs and all the rest.
And I still am afraid that the whole
thing's hot because their heart has slipped away.
Friends, let me ask you this question.
You've been married ten years, six years, five
years, whatever it is.
Let me ask you, if you positively knew,
lady, really knew, that deep in his heart
your husband had no care for you at
all, that deep in his heart were secret
wishes that he's fighting down, that he might
be rid of you from the necessity of
being where you are, how would you feel
about it?
That's backsliding in heart.
He's not going to tell you.
And I suppose in almost every instance it's
just not true.
I'm merely making up an illustration here.
But the point I want to make is
that we want the love of people's hearts.
We don't care so much about the external
things.
It's the love of the heart.
And so when God finds our hearts are
slipping and we won't admit it to ourselves,
in our secret moments we won't admit it,
but we've gotten to a place where if
we told the truth we're bored with God's
religion and we wouldn't say it, we wouldn't
admit it, we'd be ashamed of it, but
it's there.
What do you think God thinks about it?
Jesus in the book of Revelation said, You've
left your first love.
That is your first degree of love.
And he chided that church because he found
happening way back there in the second century.
He chided that church because it was losing
its affection.
But it didn't say so.
Not an elder in the Ephesian church never
stood to preach.
Not a deacon that ever passed the plates.
Not a member of the Ephesian church.
Would ever dare to get up and say,
I'm tired of God.
I'm weary of this whole business.
Not a one.
Their past testimony, logic, all the rest made
them keep quiet.
But the heart of Jesus, long it wasn't
there, chided them.
He said, I don't feel the warmth I
used to feel.
Your smile is not, your breath not so
warm.
The tone of your voice not so affectionate.
But I miss it, he said.
You've left your faith.
A man will get enough of that after
a while, trying to keep up religious appearances
with a hollow testimony and trying to talk
with enthusiastic Christians about God and seeming to
enjoy it.
Years ago, he talked about something like this
and he said that it was like a
man trying to last seen the point.
Had you ever seen anybody do that?
That waxy look with that waxy smile?
That somebody we appreciate or honor or turn
and make a pleasantry?
And we say to ourselves now, that's a
wonderful man and he's gone and we ought
to smile.
Or even chuckle.
How many a hypocritical chuckle I've made for
a joke.
And Rader was bold enough to use that
in spiritual things.
Maybe he won't hurt this morning.
He said, laugh at a joke when you
hadn't seen the point or when there wasn't
any point, I might add.
But trying to talk about God and prayer
and all the spiritual things when your heart
isn't in it, a fellow will get enough
of that after a while, brother.
Sure as you are, the next letter in
heart, he'll get enough of himself.
I pray that he may soon.
I pray that we may soon.
For unless of ourselves, I'm afraid there's not
much help.
But I pray we'll get enough of ourselves.
And then that constant church attendance was bored
with it.
And how many there are, I repeat, that
are in church this morning that are here,
maybe not here, but some churches at any
rate, bored with it.
But they've heard somebody say, don't send your
children, take them.
And they steadfastly determine they're going to follow
that, and it's good and I'm glad they
do.
But oh, it would be so much better
if they enjoyed it.
So much better that they're going to church.
I have been forced to go to religious
meetings that I didn't want to attend.
I knew that there was nothing there for
me, that I couldn't contribute anything.
And I have gone nevertheless because circumstances compelled
me to.
But I'd get enough of that pretty soon.
Really, I would.
If I had to be doing something I
don't like to do, brother, I'd get bored
with that right early.
He'd get enough of himself.
And this constant, you don't want to go
really.
If you had your way, you'd turn over
and go back to sleep.
That's an evidence of something I don't like
to think about.
And in this matter of giving, God's warm
-hearted people give spontaneously.
They love it.
They don't put their hands up and sing,
when we asunder part, it gives us inward
pain.
But they give joyously because it's a pleasure
to give.
I got a big check for mission.
That is for relief over on the other
side of the water.
The eve of the day before Thanksgiving.
And the brother who sent it wrote this
half-humorous note.
He said, I want this to go for
such and such.
And he said, I'll buy my turkey dinner
better Thanksgiving day.
Well, now, there was no hardship there.
That was spontaneous.
That came out of a heart that wanted
to serve.
But this everlasting sitting down and taking out
that dollar out of the ten, that ten
out of the hundred, that hundred out of
the thousand, and yet not enjoy doing it.
I'd get enough of that after a while,
wouldn't you?
If I wasn't a Christian, I wouldn't tithe.
Not all the things and button pushers that
come along and try to show that if
you tithe, you'll have more money than you
did.
If you don't tithe, all of that low
-grade effort to get people to give, it
isn't Christian, it isn't spiritual, it isn't decent.
What kind of people would you, if you
brought your offerings to God's house, knowing that
if you did, you'd be more prosperous than
if you didn't, knowing that you'll have more
than if you didn't tithe, and you tithed
to get more?
What kind of people would you be?
No, you people have proved better than that.
You know when you separate a ten-dollar
bill from your wallet and put it in
the plate or give it, you know you're
out ten dollars, but you know that God
takes that ten dollars and transmutes it into
everlasting blessing for the world to come and
your heart's joy as to do it.
But giving, giving when out of habit, a
man will get enough of that after a
while, and I pray the sooner the better.
And when you're cheerful, keep spiritually cheerful and
relaxed when you're enjoying.
Galatians 6, it says, Brethren, if any man
be overtaken in a fault, ye of which
are spiritual, restore such a one.
It points out that the words used there
are medical terms, and they mean when an
arm gets out of joint, a shoulder gets
out of joint, it gets snapped out for
you.
One of my boys was hurting football, and
he slept in a brace for a long
old years until that arm could get so
it wouldn't snap out.
I knew a dear old brother who used
to be in the church here who had
a knee that would go like that on
him.
How painful.
And the Holy Ghost likened backsliding to a
knee out of joint.
And to keep cheerful and smiling as though
nothing was going on with a knee out
of joint, that takes more heroic ability than
I do.
If I'm not cheerful inside, don't expect me
to be cheerful on the outside.
Don't you bring any Norman or Dale Carnegie
books and tell me to relax and be
cheerful.
I can't be.
If my heart isn't singing, I can't sing.
If my heart isn't cheerful, I can't look
cheerful.
Maybe you can, but I pray that you
can't.
An uncheerful soul trying to be cheerful, you
get enough of it after a while, the
Holy Ghost says.
He'll be filled with his own.
Oh, I pray that God will do us
the inestimable favor of going from heart to
mind and soul to soul and finding us
this morning, finding and locating us this morning
with a geiger, finding us this morning.
And if there's a cooling off in there,
find it and cure it.
You remember when Jesus looked upon Peter, it
says, And Jesus turned and looked upon Peter,
and Peter went outside and wept bitterly.
I don't know what Jesus said.
I guess he didn't say anything, for it
doesn't say he did, and I can't do
it.
He simply turned and looked at Peter.
The little woman said, Are you one of
his followers?
And Peter said, No.
She said, I think you are.
He said, I'm not.
She said again, You are.
Your speech be raised.
Then he said, I'm not a Christian.
I'm going to do something no Christian would
do.
So he cursed.
He said, If I'm not a Christian, I
may get arrested along with Jesus.
So in order to prove that I'm not
a Christian, I'm going to curse.
And so he cursed.
No, he's not.
Jesus did, and it was just before he
died.
Jesus turned and looked at that cursing apostle,
a sharp man with a keen eye.
He wasn't well-educated, but he was a
genius in his own right.
And he looked up into that face for
once, and what he saw in that face
of hurt and pain and sorrow and longing
and love was too much for Peter.
He dashed out of the house, dashed out,
hurried out of the house, and stood outside
somewhere, and with his face in his hands,
wept bitterly.
The Greek language indicates an uncontrolled torrent of
weeping.
And Jesus said a word.
He never just looked at Peter.
I wonder if the tender Jesus this morning
won't look at you.
Oh, Jesus, look on us by
love, by undying affection, a love that a
few hours later would die also.
That love hasn't lost any of its content,
no weaker, no smaller.
As big as God is big, and as
eternal as God is eternal.
Oh, Lord Jesus, we're thy sheep.
And the world is big, and the devil
is going about like a roaring lion.
The temptations are strong, and the flesh is
weak.
And maybe some of us are cooling off
inside our hearts.
Please, Lord, before it's too late, help us
to get enough of it quick before it's
too late.
Please, Lord, don't let us harm in the
backsliders.
People that have lost their conscience can no
longer grieve because they can.
No longer sorrow that they don't feel sorrow.
Oh, we plead, look at us again today
in our hearts.
We're no better than Peter, but maybe, Lord,
some who like Peter have sneaked out of
discipleship, or at least inwardly they have.
Look on us, Lord, and break our hearts.
Look on us and make us weep.
Give the grace of tears this morning, Lord
Jesus, a few tears.
If we knew that we could have this
morning $10,000 offering plates for the church
and permissions, we'd be glad.
But if we knew instead we were to
have 10,000 tears of grief and repentance
and penitence and faith and hope and joy,
we'd lay the $10,000 away and take
the tears that we might weep because we
can't weep.
Oh, help us this morning.