What to Do When Everything Feels Overwhelming at Once

When You're Keeping a Secret You've Never Told Anyone

Most of us have at least one thing we've never said out loud, and we keep it because the secret feels safer buried. This episode looks at why hidden things grow in the dark, and how James 5:16 ties confession to the healing you've been needing. Almost everyone is keeping something. A thing they did, or a thing done to them, that they decided no one would ever hear about. It feels safer buried, and for a while it is. Nobody knows. The secret stays put. But secrets don't hold still. In the dark, they grow, and the longer they stay hidden, the more power they gather. Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, found this out by accident. She set out to study human connection, what draws people close and what pulls them apart, and she kept running into something she couldn't name at first. It was shame. After interviewing hundreds of people, she landed on a line that's been quoted ever since: the less it gets talked about, the more it takes over. Shame feeds on secrecy. Left unspoken, it convinces the person holding it that they're the only one, and that if anyone found out, they'd no longer be worth knowing. That's the cruel part. The secret tells you everyone else has it together while you alone are broken, so you pull back to keep from being found out. And the pulling back costs you the closeness you were trying to protect. You end up alone with the very thing that made you feel alone. This shows up in relationships more than anywhere else. The thing left unsaid puts distance between two people who love each other, and they can feel the distance without being able to name it. A marriage can run for years on everything that never gets said, while both people wonder why they feel like strangers. James saw the same thing two thousand years before the research caught up. He gives a plain instruction: confess your sins to each other and pray for each other, so that you may be healed. Notice what he ties confession to. Healing. The thing you've kept hidden begins to lose its grip the moment you say it to someone who prays with you and stays. God built that mechanism into us long before a study confirmed it. Brown's research landed on the same cure. Shame, she found, cannot survive being spoken to someone who responds with empathy. The person who finally said the thing they'd never said, then watched the other person stay and listen, discovered the secret held less power than they had given it. In this episode, Bart draws on years of counseling, where much of what people bring to him traces back to a secret, especially in relationships. He connects what Brené Brown found to the words of James, and shows how to take the first step without making a spectacle of it. You don't need a crowd. You need one safe person and one sentence you've never said. Whatever you've been protecting has less power than you think, and saying it out loud is how you find that out. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why a buried secret gains power the longer it stays hidden * What Brené Brown's research revealed about how shame loses its hold * What James 5:16 promises when you bring a hidden thing into the light, and how to take the first step The secret was never as strong as it felt while you kept it to yourself. Healing starts with one sentence said to one person who stays. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/252 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/252] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe]. Mentioned in this episode: Join Our Private Facebook Community If you're looking for a place to connect with other Daily Devotions listeners and pray for each other, I'd love for you to join our private Facebook community group. Come find us at https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/group

Why You Keep Saying Yes When You Mean No

A lot of us say yes to almost everything, then resent the very people we said yes to. This episode looks at why we do it, and how telling the truth about your capacity frees both you and the people you love. Most of us don't set out to live overcommitted. We say yes to one good thing, then another, until the calendar is full and so is the resentment we can't quite name. We agree to the lunch and the favor a friend asked for, and the moment we hang up the phone we feel the cost of one more thing we didn't have room for. Most of us learned the habit young. Somewhere along the line, somebody taught us that no is rude, or a sign we're not committed enough to the people who count on us. So we keep the peace in the moment and pay for it later, in exhaustion and a slow burn of resentment. Anne Kennedy knew that feeling. She was a Christian woman doing everything a faithful Christian woman is supposed to do, and she still woke up at four in the morning unable to get ahead of her list. By bedtime she was apologizing again. As she put it, all she did was apologize for being a colossal failure. A friend at church nodded along and added her own version of the same list. Both of them were drowning in obligations they had agreed to, and neither one knew how to say no, because every last item looked like something a good Christian was supposed to say yes to. Then Anne came across a book that named what had happened to her. Her circle of obligation had grown so wide that life felt like ten thousand people stranded on the side of the road, and she was somehow supposed to be the good Samaritan to every one of them. What she finally saw was that her ordinary, daily obedience had been left lying by the road while she piled up one spiritual obligation after another. She had become an overcommitted Christian, and she could no longer tell the difference between what God asked of her and what guilt asked of her. This is where Matthew 5:37 meets us. Jesus said to let your yes be yes and your no be no, and that anything past that comes from somewhere it shouldn't. He treats yes and no as equally honest answers, which means a clear no is as faithful as a clear yes. A truthful no is an act of love. It protects your yes, and it protects the people on the other end from getting a worn-out, distracted version of you when they needed your attention. In this episode, Bart shares his own experience of saying yes to good things until the work God called him to began to suffer, and what he learned about telling a good thing no. Through Anne's story and the plain words of Jesus, the episode takes a clear-eyed look at why we keep agreeing when we mean to decline, and how to come back to the lighter yoke God offered. You were only ever asked to walk where He has already gone. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: - Why we keep saying yes when we mean no, and where that habit usually comes from - What Jesus meant in Matthew 5:37 when He put a clear no on equal footing with a clear yes - How a truthful no guards your time for the work God gave you, and protects the people you love Saying yes to everything was never the price of faithfulness. The lighter yoke is still on offer, and a clear no may be the most loving word you say all week. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/251 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/251] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe]. Mentioned in this episode: Join Our Private Facebook Community If you're looking for a place to connect with other Daily Devotions listeners and pray for each other, I'd love for you to join our private Facebook community group. Come find us at https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/group

When Grief Doesn't End on Schedule

You can be managing for months and then fall apart in a grocery store. That's not falling behind. In this episode, discover what grief research and Psalm 147:3 both say about the pace God heals the brokenhearted. A woman walked into a grocery store three months after her father died. She wasn't falling apart. She'd been managing: gotten through the funeral and the paperwork, and gone back to work. She wasn't thinking about her dad when she walked through those doors. Then she turned down the coffee aisle and saw his brand on an endcap with a discount tag. The same brand he always bought. The one that smelled like his kitchen on winter mornings. She made it to the parking lot before she broke down. Keys still in her hand. Crying over a bag of coffee she had no reason to buy anymore. Her video went viral because thousands of people recognized what she was describing. Most of them had experienced something like it. Grief doesn't follow the timeline other people expect of it. You can be managing for months and then fall apart in a coffee aisle, and that's just grief doing what grief does. It takes as long as it takes, and it shows up when it shows up. Not long after my best friend died, I heard a joke that would have made him laugh. Before I knew what I was doing, I had my phone out and was dialing his number. My thumb knew what my brain hadn't caught up to yet. That's how grief works. The body responds before the mind catches up. Researchers at Columbia University who study bereavement have found that the brain of a grieving person is constantly, involuntarily scanning its surroundings for the person who died. When it finds a match, a familiar smell or brand or song, the body reacts before the conscious mind catches up. The grief feels physical because it is. Your nervous system is still looking. Psalm 147:3 says God heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. Both verbs are present tense. Ongoing. He's doing it now, at the pace grief moves in a human life. The word translated "brokenhearted" in the Hebrew means shattered, and God draws close to the shattered. The closeness comes first. The healing follows. Through the woman's story and Psalm 147:3, this episode speaks directly to the person who feels like they should be further along by now. You're allowed to be where you are. God is not impatient with the process. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * What Columbia University's grief research reveals about why the body reacts to loss months after the fact, and why that response makes sense * What the Hebrew word behind "brokenhearted" in Psalm 147:3 tells us about the kind of person God draws close to * One concrete thing you can do today when grief shows up unexpectedly Grief is what love looks like when the person is gone. God heals the brokenhearted at the pace grief moves. He stays. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/250 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/250] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here [https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1]. Mentioned in this episode: Join Our Private Facebook Community If you're looking for a place to connect with other Daily Devotions listeners and pray for each other, I'd love for you to join our private Facebook community group. Come find us at https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/group

What to Do When You're Changing and Nobody Can See It Yet

Your track record is working against you. The people around you are still responding to who you were. In this episode, discover what Philippians 1:6 says about the work God started, and why He doesn't need anyone else's vote to finish it. Rusty came out of prison with a changed heart and a track record that said otherwise. He'd grown up in southeast Oklahoma with a county sheriff for a father and a schoolteacher for a mother. He ended up in prison anyway. He came to faith through a man named Trevor while he was inside, and when he got out, the people he loved most still had no reason to trust him. So he got to work. He started paying off roughly $30,000 in fines and court costs. He made the phone calls even when nobody picked up. He kept going back to the people he'd hurt and telling them things were different. The trust came back slowly, one relationship at a time, over years. One of the loneliest experiences a person can have is changing while everyone around you is still responding to who you used to be. The track record works against you. The skepticism follows you into the room. I've seen this with people who came to faith later in life, some of them with reputations in town that made everyone skeptical. They'd start coming to church and you could almost hear it: just wait, it won't last, nobody changes that drastically. Sometimes they heard it out loud. That loneliness is there, and it deserves to be named. And this episode speaks directly to the person in it. Philippians 1:6 is a verse I've had on a large canvas in my office for years. It says: God who began the good work within you will continue his work until it is finally finished. The word Paul uses for "certain" in the Greek means persuaded, convinced beyond doubt. Paul is staking his expectation on it. God started the work. He'll finish it. His completion of that work is not dependent on anyone else's vote. Through Rusty's story and Philippians 1:6, this episode makes the case that transformation happens in real time, one day at a time, in the absence of anyone else's acknowledgment. Rusty kept showing up and paying what he owed and going back to the people he'd hurt. And in April 2023, he walked back through the front door of the very prison where God had started working on him, this time holding keys to every gate in the unit as the Prison Fellowship Academy manager. God restored everything. That's what Rusty said. His kids, his parents, his grandma, everyone he'd hurt. The work had been going the whole time, even when no one could see it yet. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why the skepticism of the people around you is not a measure of whether the transformation in you is taking hold * What the Greek word behind Paul's certainty in Philippians 1:6 reveals about how settled God is on finishing the work He started * One concrete practice for persisting in change when no one around you has acknowledged it yet God who began the good work in you will finish it. Keep going. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/249 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/249] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here [https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1]. Mentioned in this episode: Join Our Private Facebook Community If you're looking for a place to connect with other Daily Devotions listeners and pray for each other, I'd love for you to join our private Facebook community group. Come find us at https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/group

Finding God's Presence in Life's Worst Moments

Life has a way of sorting itself into before and after. In this episode, discover what Ruth's story reveals about God's faithfulness in the territory you didn't choose, and why the after isn't as empty as it looks. Chris Singleton was 18 years old and finishing his freshman year at Charleston Southern University when he got the call on June 17, 2015. His mother Sharonda Coleman-Singleton had been at a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. A gunman had opened fire. Nine people were dead. His mother was one of them. Two days later he stood in front of news cameras outside that church and said 5 words that stopped the country: love is stronger than hate. Most of us have a day like that. Before it and after it, life looked different. The world on the other side felt like unfamiliar territory, because it was. You were somewhere you hadn't planned to be. Over the years in pastoral ministry I've sat with people whose lives were divided by a moment like that. A phone call or a diagnosis. A conversation that ended something. Some drew closer to God through it. Others pulled away. The ones who drew closer weren't spared the grief. They just found something in the grief that the others hadn't found yet. Ruth crossed into unfamiliar territory too. She had lost her husband and left her homeland to follow her mother-in-law Naomi to a country she'd never lived in. Her words to Naomi in Ruth 1:16-17 are some of the most committed in all of Scripture: wherever you go, I will go. Your God will be my God. What Ruth found when she arrived was that God's faithfulness had preceded her. The provision was already in place, in a field she'd never walked before, before she knew she would need it. That's the pattern this episode returns to: the after isn't empty. God was already there. In the days after his mother's murder, Chris Singleton said the forgiveness he extended came from somewhere outside himself. He said it had to be God, because nothing in his own resources could have produced it on the worst day of his life. He went on to play minor league baseball for the Chicago Cubs, then left baseball entirely to speak and write. His message has never changed: love is stronger than hate. It came to him in the after. God was already in that territory before Chris arrived. Through Chris's story and Ruth 1:16-17, this episode makes the case that the day that divides your life is not the end of God's work in it. It may be where that work becomes most visible. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * What Ruth's crossing into Moab reveals about God's faithfulness in the territory you didn't plan to enter * Why some people draw closer to God through a dividing-line moment and others pull away, and what makes the difference * One question you can bring to God today about the after you're living in The after isn't empty. God was there before you arrived. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/248 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/248] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here [https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1]. Mentioned in this episode: Join Our Private Facebook Community If you're looking for a place to connect with other Daily Devotions listeners and pray for each other, I'd love for you to join our private Facebook community group. Come find us at https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/group