When You Catch Yourself Pretending to Be Fine

Daily Devotions for Busy Lives · Sep 18, 2026 · 6m · transcript

You get asked how you're doing maybe a hundred times a week. The checkout line, and the hallway at work. Every time, you say fine. And most of the time you aren't. You're worn out in a way that sleep hasn't touched in a while, or you're grieving something nobody around you can see. Fine is the polite answer that ends the conversation, which is exactly the job it was built to do. The trouble starts when fine becomes the only setting you have left. You say it to your spouse across the supper table, and you say it to God at eleven at night when you're too worn down to pray anything else.

This…