Is It Okay to Not Be Okay

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The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject

Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty

God is hanging over our heads. They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the

Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us. Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Welcome to Bible Bashed, where we aim to equip the saints for the work of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age -old question, is it okay to not be okay?

Now Tim, as we kick this episode off, what Bible verse do you have for us to sort of help guide us through understanding this question and trying to have a conversation around it?

Sure, so Philippians 4 .1 says, Therefore my brothers, whom I love and long for my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the

Lord my beloved. Okay, so what do you think it is about that verse that should be informing our understanding when it comes to trying to answer a question like this, is it okay to not be okay?

Yeah, I mean, I mentioned there's a variety of people who could adopt this language in general.

Most people that I see who are adopting this language are excusing a level of low -grade, you know, mental slash emotional instability that is characteristic of their life.

So for many people when they're saying that, they're speaking the language of emotions essentially. So they're saying it's okay to emotionally just not have it all together to feel like a basket case, to feel like you're just depressed all the time, you're worried all the time, you're just a big failure, and, you know, all that's fine.

So in the secular world that's certainly part of the direction it goes. There's also people who are saying this kind of language just to excuse a level of irresponsibility in their life to where they don't feel like they're handling a lot of the basic issues of life.

So they're comforting themselves with their performance deficits at that point, essentially by saying it's okay to not be okay.

So in neither one of those cases, I think there's a real message of the

Bible that's repeatedly mentioned over and over again, and that's the message that Christians are those who stand firm in the faith.

So certainly, I mean, if you're an unbeliever, you are going to be characterized by mental instability, emotional turmoil, everything else, all of the above.

The Bible says the wicked flee when no one pursues, the righteous is as bold as a lion. If you don't have

God on your side, then you shouldn't expect to approach life with much confidence.

I mean, you may be constantly fleeing where no one pursues you, you may have the guilt, shame, condemnation that comes from living a life that doesn't honor the

Lord, but then all that seems to be diametrically opposed to the admonitions in Scripture and the expectation that Christians indeed will be those who stand firm in the faith.

So that's just a picture of strength. It's not a picture of basking in your not -okayness.

Yeah, it does kind of seem like a quitter kind of attitude, doesn't it?

To say, hey, I'm not okay, and that's okay, actually. It reminds me of like, if you've ever seen the movie

Monsters University, it's the movie after Monsters, Inc.,

but it's a prequel where they're going to college and they join a fraternity called,

I guess it's Omega Kappa, and the letters are okay. Okay, yeah. And they're like the mediocre team in the competition that's kind of the main focal point of the movie.

They're the mediocre team, and they constantly chant, we're okay, we're okay.

And it kind of reminds me of this conversation, like you have the kind of mediocre type of person that's just okay with just where they're at right now and not wanting to really try to grow or challenge themselves, or unwilling to fail in order to probably protect themselves from any sort of negative consequences that might come with failing.

Is that typically the characteristics that you would find in a person that is thinking this way, it's okay to not be okay?

Yeah, I mean, there's certainly a variety of people that come to mind when I hear people say this kind of thing.

And one of the frustrating things about the phrase itself is that it really is a phrase that has plausible deniability, essentially, meaning there's a sense in which, if you put this in the most charitable light that you can possibly imagine.

So if you were to take this kind of manner of speaking and try to put the most positive spin on it and ignore how it's actually being used most of the time in real time, if you were to put it in the most positive light,

I mean, there is a sense in which, yes, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

There is a legalistic kind of person who is holding themselves to a perfectionist standard.

There is a kind of person who, I mean, they don't need to hear this phrase as it's articulated.

In the way that it's articulated. So the Bible says, be perfect for I am for your

Heavenly Father is perfect. That's a far cry from, hey, it's okay to not be okay.

Like it's very far cry from that. But I mean, if you take this phrase and you don't use it in the literal sense, you try to get at the sentiment behind it and not deal with the actual words, then you could maybe apply it to a scenario where a legalistic person is holding their own personal standard of righteousness over their head, and they need to recognize that they're fallible and that Jesus died for all their sins, past, present, and future.

And he knows what gifts and strengths and abilities he's given them, and they just need to accept who he made them to be and not constantly be wallowing in condemnation because they failed to meet

God's standard and their own standard as well. But I mean, in actual usage, what happens is in case after case, you hear people using this language.

You hear people trying to comfort themselves in this kind of way, and it really is the kind of person you're describing.

So I mean, it really is the kind of person who is just kind of celebrating mediocrity.

So I mean, you can imagine the young man who plays video games all day long, doesn't have a job, doesn't have a life plan, he's failed out of college.

And it would be rarer for a guy to speak this language, but I mean, you can imagine the kind of guy who might say, yeah, you know, it's okay to not be okay.

You know, I don't have anything together, and everything together, and that's okay. And what they're doing with that is, yeah, they're celebrating mediocrity.

They have no ambition. They have so many irresponsible things that they're doing at that point in their life, and they really need to start being more responsible, stop making so many allowances for themselves.

I mean, you can imagine the similar, like the stay -at -home mom or whatever, who her house is a mess every day, and she's posting pictures of her messy house online saying it's okay to not be okay, right?

And then all of her female friends coming along and saying, you go, girl, slay queen, and all that.

They're celebrating the struggle mom life. Yes, yeah. Hashtag struggle mom life.

Yeah, basking in it, taking pictures of it, blurring in the shame kind of thing. So I think in many cases, this really is a celebration of mediocrity.

It blurs the line between different kinds of giftings that people might have to...

What do you mean by that? Well, like in the university setting, like the kind of setting that you're describing, you have a bunch of misfit monsters or whatever, who don't particularly excel at anything.

They're not good at being monsters kind of thing, right? They're not good at being what they're supposed to be in the setting, in the story, and then they're kind of constantly comforting themselves with their low performance.

And a lot of that is because there's an expectation of them to be what they're made to be, which they're failing to meet in certain ways.

I mean, certainly you're living in a society right now that has kind of abandoned the idea of any ontological realities that are definitive of what we should be in that way.

So I mean, you can see these kind of things that are happening as it relates to gender roles.

So you have men who, they don't have a lot of masculine traits. They're not devoting themselves to pursuing manliness in any real way because that's kind of a joke.

And so then they're constantly comforting themselves by their low performance.

And you can imagine females doing that in certain ways too. But I mean, a lot of that is just the undergirding.

The thing that undergirds a project is that you throw a bunch of people into roles that...

They should live up to certain expectations. And when they fail, it's culpable.

So it seems like in society, at the very points where they're failing to meet the expectations that they really should meet, then they're comforting themselves with being okay.

But then there's a lot of expectations you put on people that are unreasonable. Like for example, that everyone should graduate from college or something like that.

So in the monster story, they're all having to graduate from Monsters, Inc. because that's the expectation for them.

If you don't do it, then you're a failure. But then they aren't really cut out for the school in a lot of ways.

You have a creative story that's written at that point where they overcome the obstacles being okay and everything else.

But I mean, the issue is... To be fair, the difference in the story, which obviously it's just a movie.

But in the story, they do actually try. And they do actually learn and grow as characters.

Which seems to be the opposite of what the phrase is. The phrase, it's okay to not be okay, is kind of encouraging you to do.

It seems like that's more encouraging you to do the opposite of trying and growing.

Yeah. So I think when you consider the topic more broadly,

I mean, yeah. Education system would certainly be an example of an expectation that people have for a lot of people to...

I mean, almost all young people, you expect them to be going through this education system and excelling.

But the problem is that God's made people to be hands, eyes, foot, brains, feet, everything else.

Not everyone has the same gift. So you put everyone into scenarios where they're not designed to be.

And then you demand that they perform. There might be real scenarios like that where they can't perform up to what expectations are.

And so then why I mentioned that is because then the society doesn't come along and say, hey, you know what?

We should not hold that standard over everyone's head. So with the artificial standards, we don't reevaluate them.

What we reevaluate is the real standards. Do you see what I mean? So what we do is we use the phrase in two different ways.

So in one sense, with the standards that God holds us to, we basically use that phrase, like it's okay to not be okay, to excuse us not living up to those kind of standards that God has.

And then with the artificial standards, we tell people, hey, you have to live up to these artificial standards.

Those are fixed. We're not going to budge on those. And so then people aren't living up to those.

And then we're trying to comfort them by saying, hey, it's okay. Let's lower the standards.

Let's try to help everyone get along. And at the end of the day, you're not really pursuing excellence because you're not following people in the right kind of directions.

You're not holding them to the right standards in any serious way. And then you're demanding they meet the wrong standards. And when you realize they can't, then you're just lowering the standards.

In a lot of ways, it's just a mess. Life shouldn't just be –

I mean, life in a fallen world is certainly going to have its challenges. It's certainly going to have its difficulties. But life in a fallen world isn't meant to be this miserable kind of struggle where you're barely making it and barely getting by and can't do life.

And I've known people like this who are just characterized by this expression to where they have a never -ending list of excuses on their tongue.

And they refuse to take responsibility for much of anything. And what they're demanding of everyone around them is just to kind of step in and say, hey, you go, girl, as you're giving yourself over to worthlessness.

So, yeah, it's a mess. Doesn't it kind of feel like the phrase is meaningless in and of itself anyway?

Like if you're okay by not being okay, then you're just okay.

It kind of seems like, frankly, a stupid thing to say just because if you're – it essentially makes –

It's self -defeating, yeah. It just makes being okay – Well, it's redefining not okay as okay.

Yeah, but then if everything is just okay, yeah, there's no meaning to the phrase anymore because you're just defining everything.

So it just seems like a foolish way to say nothing, basically.

It's a phrase that's intended to silence people's consciences through clever redefinition.

So, I mean, obviously, it's a clever phrase that you're saying. So you're intentionally introducing opposites in that way, and then you're claiming it's some kind of deep paradox, mystery, clever.

It's a clever redefinition at that point. But yeah, I mean, if you're not okay, then you come –

What you have is you have – This is just an example of toxic empathy, essentially. So this is just an example of someone who's not okay, and you're looking at them, and you're just trying to silence their conscience and saying, hey, you know what?

That's okay. That's okay. It's okay that you're such a mess, man. The Bible says, faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

You think you're helping them at that point, but what you're really doing is you're doing them to a life of being emotionally unstable.

You're trying to define that as normal, like that's the new normal. The new normal is just – It's not being strong, standing firm in the faith.

It's not anything like that. It's being emotionally unstable, weighed down by guilt, shame, condemnation, having no ambition, not performing basic standards of life.

So in an attempt to be kind to people, right? Because that's what we're all about. Yeah. Bible Bash podcast is being uplifting.

Number one priority. Encouraging and helping people to accept themselves for who they are and removing all judgments.

When you do that though, I mean, the problem is it's not loving. You're just trapping someone into this very sick, twisted pattern of low performance.

They get all the guilt, the shame, the condemnation that comes from that. And there's no amount of just pretending like it's not there that will make it not go away.

Make it not there, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I guess the other thing that when

I hear a phrase like that, it doesn't strike me as the kind of phrase that would foster any sort of real gratitude towards God.

I mean, do you think that it does? If you're thinking constantly, hey,

I'm not okay, and that's okay, that I'm not okay. Is that, in your mind, leading people to the type of gratitude that we're supposed to have as Christians towards the life that God has given us?

See, I thought about that when I mentioned this passage in general, because this is a passage that speaks to a lot of the issues you're describing, particularly the issue of gratitude.

I mean, really, joy is a major theme in the book of Philippians. So Philippians 4, 1 through 10 is a definable section that has a lot to do with this topic and subject matter in general.

But Philippians 4, 1 says, So then what you do is you have a list of things that he gives you to tell you what it means to stand firm.

He says, I mean, that's an example of two people who are not okay, and Scripture calling them to get okay with each other, right?

But it says in verse 4, So you think about the perspective of someone who's saying it's okay to not be okay.

They're not thinking the Lord is at hand. They're not rejoicing in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. They're not being governed by reason at that point, right?

It's all about affirmation and validation and excuse -making. Do not be anxious about anything but everything but prayer, supplication with thanksgiving.

Again, let your requests be made known to God. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

And what you've learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things. So I mean, you think about that, like Paul was saying, follow my example, right?

Follow my example. My example is not the example of someone who's just basking in their lack of stability in life.

Yeah. I mean, life may not be – the issue is Paul is calling them to stand firm, to be stable in life, knowing that they can't control every circumstance they're going to find themselves in.

So knowing that they're living in an unstable world, an uncertain world, he's calling them to stability.

And it seems to me that the path to that is going to be through responsible choices, responsible actions, responsible thoughts, thoughts that are filled with the knowledge of God's presence, thanksgiving, trust dependent upon him, and the peace that comes from knowing that he's there, he's real, he sees, and he can help.

So all that is supposed to produce stability. It's not just supposed to produce this mindless kind of brainwashing where you're just telling yourself, everything's okay.

As the room's on fire or whatever, it's all right. And that's what you imagine with someone doing this kind of thing.

You imagine the meme of a person where everything's on fire in the room and they're like, it's all okay.

This is fine. This is fine. It's like that's not the answer.

That's not what the Bible's called them to. But yeah, thankfulness is so fundamental to the whole project. Rejoicing is so fundamental to the whole project.

If you know that God's there, he's forgiven you a great debt that you can never pay, what can man do to you? Yeah, and that's what

I think of with this phrase, hey, it's okay to not be okay. I guess in one sense, and maybe this will be like an eye roll for you,

Tim. But in one sense, there's a part of me that's inclined to say, sure, it's okay to not be okay, whatever.

Depending on what you're talking about. Because I think you look at someone like Jesus, for example.

He was a man of many sorrows, essentially.

He had no place to rest his head. He's the creator of the universe, and he's born in a manger.

And then he's ultimately killed for crimes he didn't commit, falsely accused by his own people that he came to save.

And he dies the most excruciating death known to man. And then on top of dying the most excruciating death known to man, he suffers the wrath of God on behalf of all the elect.

Or a guy like Paul, even. He's beaten, he's shipwrecked, he's mocked, he's imprisoned.

He has to go before kings and give an account. He has his own countrymen form a pact.

Essentially, they're going to either kill him or starve themselves to death.

You certainly do have people in the Bible who face external circumstances that are objectively not good circumstances.

So, sure, maybe in that sense they're not okay. But then when you're reading about them, when you're hearing their perspective, when you're hearing their attitude towards everything, they don't necessarily strike you as the type of people that are internally not okay.

If that makes sense. In fact, it seems like in the world that we live in now, we would probably give them the most excuse to say,

Hey, yeah, if you have a bad attitude, if you're not grateful, if you're just kind of giving up on life, yeah, you're totally within your right, because look at all of these external difficulties that you're facing.

Look at all these trials you're facing. I mean, how could anyone in your shoes would want to do the same thing?

But then when you hear Paul, when you hear Jesus teach, they seem like they're some of the most stable people out there.

And so, I don't know, I guess it seems like you have the kind of people that are saying this, they never really match that example that Jesus sets or the example that Paul sets.

Obviously, we couldn't match Jesus' perfect example, but we can at least try. And it seems like they're the kind of person who just really doesn't even try.

Yeah, I mean, so Paul in 2 Corinthians 4, 7 says, We have this treasure and jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God, not us.

So we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying the body of death of Jesus, so the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

But yeah, I mean, yeah, the same guy who's telling us to stand firm in the faith is the kind of person whose life is anything but stable, is anything but secure, is anything but predictable.

You read through the list of all the things that Paul has went through, all the trials that he's went through, and you realize that that's not a stable life.

That's a much harder life than any of us have probably lived. Yeah, but the thing is that people are not...

When they're saying it's okay to not be okay, they're not making an appeal to the external trials that they face.

Yeah. What they're making an appeal to is the internal attitude they have as they go through those trials.

And so when Paul says, you know, stand firm in the Lord, beloved, when he says that, he's not making an appeal to them to basically conquer the world through their own physical strength, their own mental strength, their own mental stability, you know, that kind of thing.

He's not telling them to trust in horses and chariots. That's not the plan.

He's basically saying that you need to be strong in the Lord, right? Stand firm in the

Lord, meaning you're trusting and you're depending upon him to get you through whatever happens in life.

And the kind of person who's doing that, I mean, they can be absolutely fearless because they know the Lord's my helper.

You know, I shout out fear. So anything they need, God will give them. If there's something that they really need,

God will give them. He won't withhold anything that's needful for them.

And they've learned in whatever situation they're in to be content. So, I mean, you could be remarkably stable in life if you understand that God is there.

He's real. He sees all. He loves you, cares about you, sent his son to die for you.

He saved you. You know, if you're a Christian, you know that he's given you everything you need. You can be stable.

You can be secure. You can know that there's nothing that can separate you from his love. But, yeah,

I mean, if you don't have that, then, yeah, you have every reason to not be okay. And then the best thing you could do is be a preacher of the okayness of not being okay.

I mean, that's what you do. I mean, that's the message of – I mean, that's just the message of a serpent. That's the message of the enemy telling you, you know, ignore the massive problems in life and, you know, wallow in your failures, which you've redefined as mostly not being your fault.

But, yeah, this is the counsel of the enemy, essentially. Faithful to wounds of friend, perfused are the kisses of an enemy.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think – I mean, even just, you know, in our own relationship with one another,

I feel like I've seen that pay dividends, you know, a lot more than the opposite, right?

Like the person who will just tell you whatever it is that, you know, sounds pleasant to the ear.

A lot of times that ends up being really destructive. You're basically telling on me.

You're telling on me that I'm an abusive co -host that's constantly Bible -bashing your emotions.

Yeah. Yeah. On the Bible Bash podcast, I keep getting Bible -bashed myself. The friendly fire does happen.

But then I'm always thankful that the friendly fire happened in the end. What are you doing,

Harrison? Man up. I mean, we have had conversations like that in the past.

But then, you know, looking back on, you know, as many of them as I can remember, at least, maybe

I've suppressed the ones that I didn't think paid off as much or something.

But all of the ones that I'm remembering, they ended up panning out pretty well when

I listened. Harrison's like, I wish this wasn't a daily conversation. But it's been helpful.

No, but I do think it is true, you know. I mean, it is a very good thing, you know, to have people that will tell you to have the kind of friend that would be when you say, hey, you know,

I think it's OK to not be OK. They just kind of like grab you by the shirt and just smack you around a little bit.

You know, they pull your beard out by the handfuls to try to smack some sense into you, essentially.

I do think that is a pretty worthwhile blessing to have.

I think a lot of people today just kind of, it's hard to be that person doing all the smacking around, right?

If you're going about it the right way, it's hard to be that person because, you know, you're saying hard things to people that they don't want to hear and, you know, you're risking things there.

But I think most people today would probably look at that kind of person and just kind of scorn them instead of understanding that they're missing out on a pretty big blessing, right?

Yeah, for sure. But yeah, so I guess long story short, is it

OK to not be OK? No, it is not. It's actually just not OK to be not

OK is the final verdict. Yeah, if you're not OK, then you're not OK by definition.

Maybe we shouldn't redefine not OK as OK like we redefine everything else in the world right now.

Sure. Maybe Trump can issue an executive order where he helpfully defines not

OK for us as not OK so that we can all move on from this.

We'll finally have the definitive answer that cannot be changed, at least until the next president comes in and writes his executive order that it's actually, it is

OK to not be OK again. Pretty much. OK, well,

I think that's a good place for us to wrap the episode up on. So thank you, Tim, for answering all my questions related to that.

And thank you, too, for being the person that would that smacks me around sometimes to get me to to get me to come to my senses every once in a while.

That's always happy to help. Yeah. We want to thank you guys for listening and supporting the podcast as well.

We certainly appreciate that. And it's a joy to be able to sit down and and have conversations about these things to try to get people to think biblically about, you know, the the type of the types of struggles that we face in this life and how to approach them in a way that honors

God and not in a worldly way that would lead us into sin or at the very least temptation to sin.

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