The following is a transcribed Video Q&A, so the text may not read like an edited article would. Scroll to the bottom to view this video in its entirety.
"The reason I would say some of the things about anxiety and depression before a year ago was because I saw it was helping people to relate. Like, 'Oh, Carlos speaks in front of thousands of people and he has anxiety, and I have anxiety, and he's making it, so I can make it.' I would talk about 1 Peter, I think it's 5:7, maybe, but it's 1 Peter somewhere. It says, 'The God of all grace will personally restore, establish strength and support you.' Those are great words. Right? Restore, establish, strength and support after you've suffered a little. Its like, oh why did he have to put that in there? Right? Why does it have to be after you suffer a little?
I think what I used to do is focus on the suffered a little. Oh well then, obviously I'm going to suffer. I would say things like, 'Hi I'm Carlos, I struggle with anxiety but I'm making it and I'm always going to struggle with anxiety but I'm always going to make it because God is on my side.' I think about a year ago I came to the realization through my pastor here in town where God didn't die on a cross so I can cope. That's almost the direction of my theology with anxiety. He actually died on the cross so I could have total and complete freedom.
When that happened, when I realized that and I went and I did kill my spider in that respect my anxiety has been like gone. I used to talk about my Paxil, I would take it on camera. I haven't taken Paxil in over a year now. I am completely free of anxiety. I'm like I've been telling people to cope? No, there's actual freedom involved there.
The first lie I think a Christian with anxiety may fall into is that they're always going to suffer. This is something they're always going to suffer with. That's simply not true. Freedom is here, it's waiting. We believe a lot of people with anxiety that I know believe in God and pray and beg for God to heal things like cancer, like we're going to pray against the cancer, the cancer is going to be gone, we're going to believe that the cancer is going to be gone. God can do that. Why don't we believe that with our anxiety? If we believe in a God of the impossible let's believe in the God of the possible.
I think that's the first step for someone coping with anxiety to do is to believe that God is going to heal them. Yes and amen. The healing may not come right now but it is coming so to talk in step in that it really changed everything for me."
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/Sanja Radin
Originally published Monday, 27 January 2020.
