“I’m fine in the same way as a ship is fine. I am like a wooden hulled ship, where one barnacle of regret or a couple of weeds of being let down do nothing to slow my course. Over the years, though, the barnacles cluster and the weeds grow thick and long.”
If you ask me at church over coffee how I am doing, I will probably tell you that I am “fine.”
If there is acute suffering, then I will tell you. If I have a toothache, I will tell you. If you had asked when my friend had just died, I would have told you I was not fine, and I would have told you why.
But otherwise… “I’m fine thanks”.
Except, what if I’m not? Nothing is “majorly wrong” but I’m just a bit, well… disappointed? How do I tell you that I am disappointed in my work, my family life, my church; in myself, and maybe even in God? You know the feeling. That creeping sense of dissatisfaction. A joyless weariness that colors each day. There are no words for it, no quick ones anyway. So, yeah, I’m fine.
I’m fine in the same way as a ship is fine. I am like a wooden hulled ship, where one barnacle of regret or a couple of weeds of being let down do nothing to slow my course. Over the years, though, the barnacles cluster and the weeds grow thick and long. Above the waterline it all looks shipshape. Underneath the waves, it is another story. My way becomes sluggish, my handling slow, and in a storm it might send me to the bottom of the ocean.
January is a time when we often come face to face with our disappointments. It might be that as you look back at 2016 you find yourself dwelling over what didn’t happen, when you wish that it had — or what did happen, when you wish that it hadn’t. And as you look ahead your hopes for the next year are smaller and tamer than they used to be.
How do we deal with the problem of “I’m fine, thanks”?
It’s time to stop the pretence and start being honest. We need to trust Jesus by trusting the church he has put us in. When we refuse to open up, we preach that “The Son of Man came to seek and save the fine, the sorted and the smiling”. We need to trust our brothers and sisters with the truth about how we are doing—how we’re really doing.
That doesn’t that mean we need to tell everyone we see on Sunday everything that is going on in our lives. But it does mean enjoying being served by more brothers and sisters than we let in at the moment. Here is the way I approach openness in the church: being known fully by some and truly by all. Let me unpack that.
Being Fully Known by Some
There should be people in the church who know me. People who know the disappointments under the waterline. I know this is hard. For instance, I am a pastor in a small church, so what if I am disappointed with someone in the church? Isn’t it gossip to talk about that with others? I don’t think this has to lead to gossip (although it can!). If I talk about disappointment as it relates to my heart, I do not moan or blame others. The issue is that I need help to put my disappointments in the perspective of Christ’s coming judgment and his glorious resurrection.
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