“I’m Fine”

*The following writing is designed to be read, understood, and discussed by believers in Jesus Christ. I’m not talking about people who call themselves “Christians” but haven’t accepted Christ and, therefore, don’t live like they’ve accepted Christ. I don’t mean this to be “exclusive,” and anyone that wants to discuss this certainly can, it just make not make sense at all to someone who doesn’t love Jesus. In my own perspective, attempting to hypothetically think about myself being an atheist or a believer in some other concept instead of a Christian, I admit I would not comprehend this writing in the way it was meant to be understood. That being said, all are welcome to read and I promise none of this is meant to offend anybody, but to glorify God and to display love for all.*

I’m writing this to share my thoughts on a common issue amongst Christians that deeply bothers me. I myself have a hand in this problem and that annoys me even more. The problem that I have? When I hear others say or when I say to other believers in Christ any of the following lines in response to the preceding questions:

How are you today? “I’m fine.”

You doing alright? “Me? Oh yea, I’m great.”

Hey *Insert name*, how was your week? “Ehhh it was alright. Work is work, you know?”

The list goes on and on and on…

Let me be clear on this issue before I go any further. If a non-believer does not want to share their struggles/true issues with a believer in Christ, I am in no way saying that is wrong. Why should they feel that spiritual connection that we believers have and SHOULD feel at all times with one another? You can’t expect the same things out of people who do not know and love Jesus Christ as their savior so I don’t want anybody thinking that I believe they SHOULD be capable of having that spiritual intimacy with humans that DO love Jesus Christ.

Anyway, back to the statements. I have a few issues with each of these scenarios. These issues are listed in the order that they occur and in the order that they need to be fixed in.

1)      The question. Why are you asking people these extremely general questions knowing full well that 99% of people will, on 99% of occasions, respond in a general way? These questions are viewed as “hello” by almost everybody now days and that is a sad truth. When you are asking someone a question about their personal life, BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT IT! Don’t dilly daddy. Get to the point and ask them REAL questions. Our questions should be displaying our love for one another, our love for God, and God’s love for us. Here are some REAL questions/statements you could ask someone instead of one of the statements from above:

a.       Is there anything horrible that happened to you this week that I could pray for? I want you to know I love and care for you deeply!

b.      Hey, I heard your grandma passed away this week. I know that’s horrible feeling. I know you don’t know if she was saved before she passed away. I know all you can think about right now is if she is in hell or if she is with Jesus Christ. I want you to know I love you, that I care about you, and that God loves and cares about you more than I ever possibly could. Everything is NOT going to be fine right now, but that’s ok. We go through trials in life and, in the end, there will be no more tears or pain or death.

c.       I know you lost your job and I suspect you’re really struggling financially right now. Do you and your wife need a place to stay at right now?

d.      Hey *insert name,* tell me 2 good and 2 rough points you had today. Don’t worry about time, I’m here to talk to you buddy!

2)      The response. When a believer in Christ asks you a question and, whether it is a general or a really specific and intentional question, you respond, it should be a truthful response. Don’t give any useless answers like I listed earlier in this writing. It is, quite literally, a waste of breath to say “I’m fine” or “It’s all good in the hood” or any other utterly nondescript response. How does it help a fellow believer to know what they could be praying for? How does it help YOU out by lying to people? To lie is a sin but you’re also cutting yourself off more from the body of Christ when you lie to a believer. Here are some things you COULD say to people if and when they ask you general questions and you’ve been in these situations:

a.       How are you, man? “Not good. I’ve been struggling watching porn a lot lately and I hate myself so much after watching it. I need prayer and I’d appreciate you helping me stay accountable.”

b.      You have a good week, girl? “I’m dating a guy who isn’t a believer and hates my ‘obsession’ that I have with this ‘Jesus guy.’ I can’t afford my rent bill this month on my apartment because my boss cut my hours by 10 hours for 2 weeks this month so I’m stressed out of my mind trying to figure out what to do. Oh and on top of that, because of my lack of funds, I can’t afford to drive to church now. I really need help and I really need prayer and I really need my faith in God to increase because, currently, I’m having a lot of doubts about whether or not HE is going to provide for me.”

3)      The lack of openness with ALL believers. There is this silly and ridiculous concept floating around (and by around I mean everywhere) that you should ONLY be sharing struggles with fellow believers that you’re really close with. When I think about that concept I get angry because of how this negatively impacts the body of Christ. I’M GOING TO ALL CAPS THIS TO MAKE SURE YOU SEE THIS ABOVE ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS WRITING. I WANT THIS TO BE PERFECTLY CLEAR. IF YOU ARE A BELIEVER IN CHRIST, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO, WILLING TO, AND DESIRING TO SHARE EVERY STRUGGLE AND SUCCESS YOU HAVE WITH OTHER BELIEVERS. It does NOT matter if I’m talking to some guy I’ve known for 12 years as a believer or if it’s a girl I just met on a mission trip to China who is a believer. None of us should judge one another because we ALL are aware of that fact that NONE of us deserve the salvation we have and ALL of us deserve nothing but Hellfire. We should SEEK to be rebuked by others when we sin. We should SEEK a loving and helping hand when we are having difficulties in life. We should SEEK out constant prayer for REAL things that are happening to us. We should not LIE to believers. You should be able to tell any believer, anywhere on the planet, at any time, anything that has happened to you in your life and you should be JOYFUL that God has given you the opportunity to share things with them that will help you BOTH grow to love and depend on the Lord Jesus Christ more and more each second of this side of eternity. Praise GOD for our ABILITY to have fellowship with other believers in Christ and CURSE this HORRIBLE notion of hiding your true pains from fellow believers. It is one of the dumbest and worst mindsets ever founded in the history of humanity and it needs to end NOW. And yes, I’m passionate and mad as I’m writing this because I’m sick and TIRED of people (including myself) not being honest with believers who care and love them. I’m going to end this with some verses for you all to read.

What does the Bible say?

Galatians 6:1-5 ESV / 112 helpful votes

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 ESV / 73 helpful votes

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

James 5:16 ESV / 69 helpful votes

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Proverbs 27:17 ESV / 61 helpful votes

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

Notice in Galatians it doesn’t limit the people who can restore in a spirit of gentleness to people who have known the believers for 10 years…

Notice in Thessalonians it doesn’t limit it to encouraging those who you are really familiar with.

Notice in James it doesn’t say to confess your sins only to Priests or to family or to people you see on a regular basis that are believers. You should confess to “one another,” not a specific and small group of close believers.

Notice in Proverbs it doesn’t say only men that have known each other for a long time.

These issues can’t be worked on unless all 3 are worked on at the same time by believers. We can’t work on our responses while still asking general questions and (in our minds) hoping for short answers. Also, I’m not suggesting that we try to spew out all of our struggles 5 minutes before church starts. TRUE questions and TRUE and detailed responses should occur even in a short setting, but you could say something along the lines of “life has been pretty rough lately. I could use some prayer and I’d love to be able to share my struggles with you when you’re available.” I truly hope anyone who reads this finds encouragement to be more honest with their brothers and sisters in Christ. I love you all, but God loves you more!

So... where do I start with this? Hmm... well these thoughts will probably be kinda scattered:

I think 99% of the time anybody asks "How are you," they probably don't really want a list of all your problems.This is the problem you're identifying, especially when it happens among/between Christians. I would agree that this even becomes a habit among Christians. It is indeed viewed as a greeting.

But I think a big reason this deeper conversation doesn't happen is people don't like to appear weak or vulnerable. I know I don't like to appear weak or vulnerable. If it's with someone I'm really close with, I'm way more likely to tell them what's really on my mind. I'm just not all that comfortable with sharing my struggles with people I don't know very well. Whether or not you want them to, and whether or not they should, people often judge others. I'm not entirely sure why I'm not comfortable exposing myself to others, part of it is probably just my personality, but at least some of it is probably fear of being judged by others. Judging people can happen almost subconsciously.

I like what you're saying and I wish I could say that I'm completely onboard, but... I don't know, it seems a bit too idealistic. Yeah I can try and get people to share their worries so that I can try to help, but a lot of people just don't like to open up, myself included.

Something that's on my mind:
I used to feel that I was on really good terms with God. Now I feel a little distant. I know I need to work on my praying. I don't do it nearly as often as I wish I did, and I don't pray for others nearly as often as I wish I did. It's like there was the "honeymoon phase" of Christianity and then it just kind of stopped and I don't feel as Christian as I used to.

Sorry, just tagging for now.

I will say I didn't use to express my own struggles nearly as much as I do now. Now, upon meeting a Christian whom I haven't met before, I am a lot more easily opening up about my struggles from the past and present. And it feels GOOD to open up with them and to hear important things that have impacted them even know I don't know them that well yet. We are all brothers and sisters for eternity so there should be no weirdness between us (and I know, that is idealistic but it will EVENTUALLY happen so why can't we at least work on it now?).

We all go through trials and struggles, my friend. When we let our minds get flooded with thoughts of worldly things (money, social status, material items, etc.) then, I find with myself and I'd imagine you find it the same with yourself, we tend to not pray and read the Bible as much and we tend to feel further away from God in those moments. I've had plenty of them in my life and every single one of them was due to my own laziness with depending on God by communicating my heart to HIM. You're not alone in that struggle but you're not any less "Christian" than you used to be. You are saved by grace from Christ alone and as long as someone has accepted Christ as their savior then they are saved forever.

Not all people ask "how are you" just like they are saying hello in another way.
It's true that it's something we used to do and sometimes it does come out as a "hello", but we shouldn't read too much into it.

"How are you" is normally an introduction to a conversation and the important questions come later during the conversation.
And even if the conversation in no more than a "how are you" it doesn't mean we aren't concerned, it might be the case that when we talk or look at said person we don't really see anything that tells us that something bad is going on.

Other times it doesn't even cross our minds to take the conversation with a little more serious.


It's great that you can open up to people, but it's hard to do it when you don't really know the person in front of you.
Opening up is something that can take it's time and sometimes people are so ashamed of what they did or how many times they done it, that it's painful to talk about it. And the contexto of the conversation might not even be the most encouraging to share something deep.

@mysticwolf:
We all have better days and worse days, but you need to remembre not to lay down your arms.
Praying is a very important part, but you need to know what you are praying for and what "side" of Jesus/God/Holy Spirit you have in your heart when you pray or live your daily life.

Taking time to read the bible or messages that Jesus or Mary have talked about in apparitions is a good way to better know God.

Go to church, confess and take the host. But more importantly, think about why those things are important before and when you do them.

If you want some books about apparitions i can give you a few. They delved into the message of God in the Bible.