Is It Ever OK to Fake It?

Do you ever have days when you just don’t feel like putting in the work? You’re tired, you’re burned out, you’re stressed other things in your life, or you just feel like you deserve a break! What do you do on those days?

If we’re following our theme of training for this year, we ask if it’s better to go to the gym or jump on the treadmill even when we don’t feel like working out, knowing that we may not put in our best effort.

Most of us have been in that situation in our lives at some point or other, and I suspect that the spiritual aspect of our training really highlights this problem. Because as we’ve been talking about this year, training ourselves to be better disciples of Christ is a daily effort. Some days are harder than others, and some days present us with that inevitable “wall” we hit in our training regimens.

Usually when we slip up, it’s because we came to one of those days and decided, “It’s just not worth fighting today.”

So how do we deal with those days? More and more, our culture points us to the idea that we need to be true to ourselves above all else. In the not-so-distant past, the socially acceptable approach to a difficult situation was to smile, put on your best face, grit our teeth, and remain polite and patient and kind even when your didn’t feel like being any of those things.

And if the person in front of you was boorish and obnoxious, or you just disagreed with them in some way, you would try (usually) to navigate the situation as gracefully as possible. In other words, you would try to be tolerant.

But today, that’s not considered “real,” and not being real is one of the worst things we can be. The idea of acting outwardly in a way that doesn’t reflect who we are or what we think inwardly is viewed not as politeness, but hypocrisy. As Bible students, we know well that Jesus’ biggest criticism of the ruling Jews of his day was their hypocritical worship. They seemed fine on the outside, but their inner thoughts were corrupt. They didn’t care about God or their neighbor, even when they pretended to care.

So now, we find ourselves in a culture where battling our inner impulses is considered fake, and we don’t make a distinction between someone who genuinely wants to do good and falls short from time to time and someone who is genuinely putting on an act to disguise his true character or true intentions. We are the “born that way” generation – if I feel an impulse or urge, denying it means denying myself, it means being disingenuous.

And let’s be honest, it’s just easier to live your life when you don’t feel compelled to battle temptation. Just do it, own it, and expect others to love you for it.

If you’re interested in spiritual things enough to listen to this podcast, that probably doesn’t describe how you feel in general.

But… we still have those days when praying doesn’t come easily for us. When I just don’t feel like opening my Bible. When answering someone’s foolishness with kindness is just too draining. When I keep hitting that snooze button on Sunday morning, or when I just feel like I’m dragging or a little under the weather, and I’m fairly sure I won’t be as focused on worship as I might normally be. Or maybe I come to worship, but I don’t engage in singing because my heart just isn’t in it. And I don’t want to offer “vain worship.”

We have to start from the understanding that doing things God’s way, with the right attitude and heart, is never going to be our default setting. As we’ve pointed out many times on this podcast, Paul described his life as “buffeting his body daily and bringing it under subjection.”

Paul didn’t take the attitude that if things were hard, he needed to take a step back and do a self-care day. or to re-evaluate whether the difficulty was pointing him toward a truer version of himself that he ought to embrace rather than deny. Instead, he fought harder.

There is a saying I used to hear when I was trying to start an independent contracting business in an industry where I knew i wasn’t as much an expert as some of the competing companies. The advice I received from an industry thought leader was simply this: “Fake it till you make it.” Get out there, sell your ability and intellect, and if you hit a roadblock in your skill set, learn how to handle that issue as it comes up.

That’s not dishonesty, and it’s not hypocrisy. That’s having faith in yourself that you can handle whatever job you take on.

That’s how we approach our lives in Christ, with one notable exception: my faith in handling those obstacles isn’t in myself. It’s in God. What does Paul say: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” I know that even when I don’t feel like I have it in me to handle the challenges of the day in a godly manner, God does, and I can be confident that if I will at least put forth the effort, I will be stronger for it. Even if I fail, even if I didn’t feel as “fulfilled” as I think I should feel.

I suspect all of us have had days when we went to worship not feeling like we wanted to be there on that particular day. But I also suspect that in almost no cases have we ever left thinking “that was a mistake.” And maybe turning the other cheek doesn’t feel great on the day that we just can’t handle having our buttons pushed – but then, turning the other cheek never feels great until we realize that Jesus did that on his best days and worst days alike. And we remember what Peter wrote:

Is it faking it to say “I don’t feel like being kind to this person today, and they certainly don’t deserve it, but I’m going to do it anyway?” No. Is it hypocritical religion to sit in worship and sing praises to God on a day when I’m not feeling all that grateful or I’m struggling with some aspect of my faith? No. It’s the practice of “taking every thought captive to obey Christ,” as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 10:5.

It is the very essence of training for godliness.