I am not okay
I’m barely getting by
I’m losing track of days
And losing sleep at night
I am not okay
I’m hanging on the rails
So if I say I’m fine
Just know I learned to hide it well.

Jelly Roll, “I Am Not Okay”

We are not okay. Jelly Roll captured this truth perfectly in his 2024 hit “I Am Not Okay,” which I have listened to countless times. Each time my heart has been moved; I could feel the impact of hard times in my own life, in the lives of our immediate and extended family, and in the lives of our friends.

“The Psychology of Walking with God” grew out of my own breakthrough. It came from my understanding that the biblical vocabulary for addressing my psychological needs had been there all along, but my religious mask had blinded me to it.

Jelly Roll’s song not only helped me reach deeper into the emotional and spiritual depths of my inner life, but it also opened my eyes. As I saw it reach #1 on Billboard and other charts, I realized that what I experienced personally was true throughout the country and likely the world.

The final lines of the first stanza captured my attention: “So if I say I’m fine, just know I learned to hide it well.” This describes a psychological phenomenon called masking—when someone hides or suppresses their natural behaviors, feelings, or struggles to appear “normal” or to avoid judgment, rejection, or stigma. Masking is a survival strategy during difficulty, and almost everyone I know is either going through a struggle or knows someone who is.

The psychology of walking with God is a mindset and heart condition that sees God as an answer when we feel that we are not okay. He is the answer that allows us to take off the mask and thrive as our authentic selves, weaknesses and all.

Brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the hard times we had in Asia Minor. We were having a lot of trouble. It was far more than we could stand. We even thought we were going to die. [9] In fact, we felt as if we were under the sentence of death. But that happened so that we would not depend on ourselves but on God. He raises the dead to life.

2 Corinthians 1:8-9 NIrV

The only way to handle hard times is to find and experience a God-awakening—to stop relying on ourselves and start relying on God.

Once we experience this God-awakening of turning from self-reliance to God-reliance, we become people who can make spiritual attachments. These are deeper relationships than we might typically experience. They involve not only conversation but also intimacy, trust, and reliance upon one another. Filled with forgiveness and understanding, these attachments allow us to sustain relationships over decades. They deepen over time, weaving us together spiritually and emotionally in ways impossible without the love of God, which he shows us and we then show others.

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too.

2 Corinthians 1:3 MSG

This is what the psychology of walking with God is about: overcoming the cultural obstacles that society places in the path of knowing God so that we can meet private spiritual hunger through public spiritual conversations.

If those who read this series join me in practicing this type of walk with God, we can not only strengthen ourselves and our relationships to overcome difficulty, but also be God’s answer in our country. So many Americans feel deeply alone; they haven’t been told or are unaware that God is a powerful answer to the current state of our nation. 

This crisis of authenticity isn’t just personal—it’s national. It’s created a psychological state which I consider to be “America Alone.” 

When millions of people are masking their pain, when “I’m fine” has become our cultural lie, we create a society where genuine care becomes impossible. We’ve responded by hiring professionals to do the work that relationships once did naturally. 

The numbers tell a revealing story, which we’ll discover together in this edition of The Chemistry Lab. Notebooks open. Let’s see what we can learn today.

America alone: The psychological state of the country

In the face of this social disintegration, we have essentially hired an army of replacement confidants, an entire class of professional carers. As Ronald Dworkin pointed out in a 2010 paper for the Hoover Institution, in the late ’40s, the United States was home to 2,500 clinical psychologists, 30,000 social workers, and fewer than 500 marriage and family therapists. As of 2010, the country had 77,000 clinical psychologists, 192,000 clinical social workers, 400,000 nonclinical social workers, 50,000 marriage and family therapists, 105,000 mental-health counselors, 220,000 substance-abuse counselors, 17,000 nurse psychotherapists, and 30,000 life coaches. The majority of patients in therapy do not warrant a psychiatric diagnosis. This raft of psychic servants is helping us through what used to be called regular problems. We have outsourced the work of everyday caring.

Stephen Marche, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” (The Atlantic, 2012)

We are living in a dangerous and volatile time. As cliché as it may sound, these are the moments when we most need love, but find it least. The absence of love has become so great that society now hires people to care. 

While professional care is essential and valuable, it remains an unsustainable substitute for a culture of love. The type of love we need is not an idealistic theory, but the practiced power of love made sustainable by walking with God.

“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold…”

Matthew 24:12 NIV

The coldness Jesus warned about is reflected in the hiring of everyday carers, and this pattern has only deepened since Marche wrote those words. The growth in mental health professions since his 2010 baseline is staggering.

By 2024, the United States employed 204,300 psychologists, 483,500 mental health counselors, 77,800 marriage and family therapists, and 810,900 social workers—a dramatic expansion across every category of the caring professions since 2010.

Employment in mental health-related occupations is projected to grow much faster than average through 2032, with substance abuse and mental health counselors expected to see 18% growth. Yet despite this ballooning workforce, more than 122 million Americans—over one third of the population—lived in federally designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas as of August 2024, and the average national wait time for behavioral health services is 48 days.

The numbers reveal a paradox: we have more professional carers than ever, yet millions still lack access. This furthers the case that the ordinary, daily work of friendship remains irreplaceable.

None of this should surprise us if we believe in the spiritual world. The real enemy is not the failure of people to love or the hiring of carers but the unseen conflict that began before us and will outlast us:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) places.

Ephesians 6:12 AMP

The only lasting answer is for each of us to recognize that the crisis of our time exists not because of specific people, but because God is suppressed (Romans 1:18). 

Some may regard this perspective as naïve. But anyone who reads the Scriptures and gives them a chance will see this inarguable truth: the first Christians changed the world precisely because they believed in the sustainable love of God. They saw the present darkness as their greatest obstacle, and they overcame it by walking powerfully and dynamically with God.

This is the biblical lesson that has given me deep conviction that the suppression of God must first end in my own life before I can help anyone else. Without God, my dysfunctions make me part of the problem rather than the solution for an America alone. This is why I pursued him—seeking to understand my personal psychology (emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and choices) so I could break free from these dysfunctions and awaken in others the power of a transformative relationship with God.

The awakening we all need

“…Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Ephesians 5:14 NIV

How did I break free from my dysfunctions? In December 1990, I watched a film called Awakenings. The movie is based on the true story of Dr. Oliver Sacks (called Dr. Malcolm Sayer in the film), a neurologist who discovered that the drug L-DOPA could “awaken” patients who had been catatonic for decades following the encephalitis epidemic of 1919–1930.

Even after ten years as a Christian, I was only beginning to understand my life—my personal psychology and the underlying truths shaping my choices for good or ill. The film inspired me because it showed what happens when someone awakens to reality after decades of unconsciousness.

What did this idea of “awakening” to the depths of my human nature teach me about myself and the world around me? I realized that ignoring the confusing and painful truths of our lives only keeps God suppressed. To experience the positive psychological effects of faith, we must face the root of many of humanity’s psychological struggles: the hidden truths we would rather avoid. Like the Psalmist in Psalm 42, we must learn not to run from our emotions but to run to God through them:

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Psalm 42:5 NIV

Why am I so overwrought, Why am I so disturbed? Why can’t I just hope in God? Despite all my emotions, I will believe and praise the One who saves me, my God.

Psalm 42:11 VOICE

Awakenings lead to transformation.

The psychology of walking with God means three things:

• Understanding our psychology well enough to let God change it.
• Awakening in others the transformative power of a relationship with him.
• Experiencing the incomprehensible reality of walking with God in this life.

As the psalmist declared:

This is just too wonderful, deep, and incomprehensible! Your understanding of me brings me wonder and strength.

Psalm 139:6 TPT

Like the patients in Awakenings, we too can wake up—to a life we never knew was possible.

Next week: We’ll look at how to actually practice this—nine steps to lower our walls and experience the psychological benefits of walking with God.