When You Catch Yourself Pretending to Be Fine

Mark Dance had preached for more than 20 years.

He was the guy people came to when their lives were falling

apart, the one with the wisdom and the good word of Scripture.

And for months, he'd been falling apart himself. He was

living in a fog he couldn't think through, worn down by

something he couldn't put his finger on. Every Sunday, he

stood up and ministered to everybody else. Every day,

someone asked how he was doing, and every time, he said, he was

fine. The truth was, the man who helped everyone else couldn't

bring himself to admit that he needed help, too. We'll come

back to what he finally did, but first, welcome to Daily

Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. I've preached plenty

of Sundays with nothing left in the tank. You stand up and give

the message you prepared. It's a message from God's Word, and you

mean every word of it. Then, you go stand at the door and and

take a whole bunch of hands, and most of them ask, "How you're

doing?" "Good, "I'm doing good." I said it on days when I had

nothing left, because the line was moving, and there was

somebody waiting to talk to me about something going on in

their life. "Fine" is efficient, and that's why most of us say it.

You get asked how you're doing, maybe a hundred times a week.

Well, maybe not that many. But it feels like it. The checkout

line and the hallway at work. Every time you say "Fine," and

most of the time you aren't.

Or you're grieving something nobody around you can see.

"Fine" is the polite answer that ends the conversation. And

that's exactly the job it was built to do, wasn't it? Nobody

in the checkout line wants the long version, and you both know

it. So the word does its work, and everybody moves along. The

trouble starts when "Fine" becomes the only setting you

have left. You say it to your wife across the supper table.

You say it to God at 11 at night when you're too worn down to

pray anything else. David wrote a psalm about a stretch when he

wouldn't say what was going on inside of him. Psalm 32: 3-5

Look at how physical that is! He said, "My body wasted away. My

strength evaporated like water in the summer heat." David's

telling us what it cost him and his body to hold something in

and keep saying he was fine. Now, the thing David was holding in

was sin. He says it out loud to God, and I want to be careful

with that because what you've got going on may be something

else entirely. It might be grief. It might be grief. It might be

an illness with a diagnosis and a treatment. Depression is not a

sin to be confessed. And anybody who tells a depressed person

otherwise is doing damage. What travels from David's experience

over into yours is the mechanism of action. Concealment costs

something. And the body is where the bill arrives. the thing in

long enough, it starts showing up in your sleep, in your body,

in your appetite. Look at the turn in verse 5: Finally, I

He stopped trying to hide. That word finally is

important. David held out for a while. And eventually, the

holding out cost him more than the telling would have. God

doesn't need you to be fine before you talk to him. He

already has the long version. He knows you're not doing fine. You

aren't protecting him from anything he hasn't already seen.

knows you're sorry to get out loud in the truck or wherever

you are. And then tell one person: If what you're

describing sounds like what Mark described, the fog that won't

lift and the sleep that isn't working, then the person you

tell should be a doctor. Then Mark did the thing that scared

him most. He told his doctor the truth about the fog. The

diagnosis was clinical depression. And with treatment,

the fog started to lift. About a week later, a woman in his own

church, a licensed counselor, reached out to him to talk him

through it. Mark came to say something that set a lot of

people free. His depression was a chemical problem, not a

character problem. He'd been afraid that asking for help

meant his faith was weak. Instead, it became the moment he

stopped performing and let God and a few people meet him in the

truth. Look at the order of things here. He told one person

who could do something about it, and a week later, somebody else

showed up. Telling the first one made room for the second. That's

usually how it goes. The first sentence is the one that costs

you and the one also that opens the door. Here's today's

challenge. The next time somebody asks how you're doing,

and you feel the word "fine," getting ready to come up out of

habit, pick one person a day and give them the other answer, the

real answer. It doesn't have to be the whole story. Try

something like this. I'm worn out, and I haven't said it out

loud to anybody in a while. Then, stop talking for a second and

let them do something about it. And before you go to bed tonight,

tell God the long version. He's been waiting on it. Father, you

already know the answer to the question everybody keeps asking

us. Thank you that we don't have to get ourselves together before

we come to you. For everybody listening who's been answering

fine for months, give them one person a tale and the courage to

say one sentence to them this week that's true. For the ones

who are worn down in a way that needs a doctor, move them toward

help and take the shame off of it. Meet us where we are,

because where we are is all we've got. In Jesus' name, Amen.

If Daily Devotions for Busy Lives has been an encouragement

to you, would you take a minute and leave a rating and review?

It helps more people find these devotions, and it only takes a

moment. I'd be so grateful. Thanks for joining me on Daily

Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, God doesn't need you

to be fine before you talk to Him. Tell Him the truth, and

then tell one person. Come back next time for more encouragement

to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until then, God

bless, and have a great day.