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When You Catch Yourself Pretending to Be Fine · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Bart Leger: Mark Dance had preached for more than 20 years.
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  He was the guy people came to when their lives were falling
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  apart, the one with the wisdom and the good word of Scripture.
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  And for months, he'd been falling apart himself. He was
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  living in a fog he couldn't think through, worn down by
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  something he couldn't put his finger on. Every Sunday, he
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  stood up and ministered to everybody else. Every day,
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  someone asked how he was doing, and every time, he said, he was
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  fine. The truth was, the man who helped everyone else couldn't
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  bring himself to admit that he needed help, too. We'll come
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  back to what he finally did, but first, welcome to Daily
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  Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. I've preached plenty
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  of Sundays with nothing left in the tank. You stand up and give
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  the message you prepared. It's a message from God's Word, and you
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  mean every word of it. Then, you go stand at the door and and
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  take a whole bunch of hands, and most of them ask, "How you're
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  doing?" "Good, "I'm doing good." I said it on days when I had
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  nothing left, because the line was moving, and there was
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  somebody waiting to talk to me about something going on in
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  their life. "Fine" is efficient, and that's why most of us say it.
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  You get asked how you're doing, maybe a hundred times a week.
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  Well, maybe not that many. But it feels like it. The checkout
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  line and the hallway at work. Every time you say "Fine," and
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  most of the time you aren't.
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  Or you're grieving something nobody around you can see.
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  "Fine" is the polite answer that ends the conversation. And
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  that's exactly the job it was built to do, wasn't it? Nobody
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  in the checkout line wants the long version, and you both know
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  it. So the word does its work, and everybody moves along. The
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  trouble starts when "Fine" becomes the only setting you
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  have left. You say it to your wife across the supper table.
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  You say it to God at 11 at night when you're too worn down to
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  pray anything else. David wrote a psalm about a stretch when he
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  wouldn't say what was going on inside of him. Psalm 32: 3-5
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  Look at how physical that is! He said, "My body wasted away. My
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  strength evaporated like water in the summer heat." David's
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  telling us what it cost him and his body to hold something in
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  and keep saying he was fine. Now, the thing David was holding in
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  was sin. He says it out loud to God, and I want to be careful
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  with that because what you've got going on may be something
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  else entirely. It might be grief. It might be grief. It might be
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  an illness with a diagnosis and a treatment. Depression is not a
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  sin to be confessed. And anybody who tells a depressed person
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  otherwise is doing damage. What travels from David's experience
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  over into yours is the mechanism of action. Concealment costs
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  something. And the body is where the bill arrives. the thing in
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  long enough, it starts showing up in your sleep, in your body,
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  in your appetite. Look at the turn in verse 5: Finally, I
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  confessed: He stopped trying to hide. That word finally is
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  important. David held out for a while. And eventually, the
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  holding out cost him more than the telling would have. God
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  doesn't need you to be fine before you talk to him. He
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  already has the long version. He knows you're not doing fine. You
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  aren't protecting him from anything he hasn't already seen.
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  knows you're sorry to get out loud in the truck or wherever
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  you are. And then tell one person: If what you're
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  describing sounds like what Mark described, the fog that won't
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  lift and the sleep that isn't working, then the person you
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  tell should be a doctor. Then Mark did the thing that scared
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  him most. He told his doctor the truth about the fog. The
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  diagnosis was clinical depression. And with treatment,
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  the fog started to lift. About a week later, a woman in his own
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  church, a licensed counselor, reached out to him to talk him
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  through it. Mark came to say something that set a lot of
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  people free. His depression was a chemical problem, not a
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  character problem. He'd been afraid that asking for help
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  meant his faith was weak. Instead, it became the moment he
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  stopped performing and let God and a few people meet him in the
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  truth. Look at the order of things here. He told one person
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  who could do something about it, and a week later, somebody else
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  showed up. Telling the first one made room for the second. That's
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  usually how it goes. The first sentence is the one that costs
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  you and the one also that opens the door. Here's today's
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  challenge. The next time somebody asks how you're doing,
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  and you feel the word "fine," getting ready to come up out of
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  habit, pick one person a day and give them the other answer, the
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  real answer. It doesn't have to be the whole story. Try
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  something like this. I'm worn out, and I haven't said it out
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  loud to anybody in a while. Then, stop talking for a second and
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  let them do something about it. And before you go to bed tonight,
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  tell God the long version. He's been waiting on it. Father, you
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  already know the answer to the question everybody keeps asking
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  us. Thank you that we don't have to get ourselves together before
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  we come to you. For everybody listening who's been answering
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  fine for months, give them one person a tale and the courage to
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  say one sentence to them this week that's true. For the ones
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  who are worn down in a way that needs a doctor, move them toward
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  help and take the shame off of it. Meet us where we are,
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  because where we are is all we've got. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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  If Daily Devotions for Busy Lives has been an encouragement
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  to you, would you take a minute and leave a rating and review?
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  It helps more people find these devotions, and it only takes a
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  moment. I'd be so grateful. Thanks for joining me on Daily
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  Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, God doesn't need you
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  to be fine before you talk to Him. Tell Him the truth, and
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  then tell one person. Come back next time for more encouragement
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  to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until then, God
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  bless, and have a great day.