 this has been something that's been heavy on my heart honestly and it is how Christians have responded to mental illness in the past. I've experienced this firsthand. I have experienced anxiety throughout my whole life and it has been really challenging to operate with it. It's been debilitating at times and I know a lot of you have experienced similar mental illness whether that's anxiety, depression or other things. In this video I want to address some of the ways that Christians have pushed mental illness under the rug and a little bit of why they've done that and why that has been a reoccurring theme and also dig into how we can actually help those in our life with mental illness and if you have mental illness how you can see Christ in the midst of it. So first the cover up. Why have so many stories of mental illness and so many people feel like they were forgotten or not acknowledged in their struggle with depression, anxiety, whatever it may be in the church context. I didn't coin this but what I've heard it's this mental health prosperity gospel. So when we think about the prosperity gospel we think of you know these big preachers or Joel Osteen or Benny Hinn or whoever else they're like you know God wants you to live a happy healthy wealthy life you know that Joel Osteen is very popular for that kind of language and that kind of rhetoric trash theology if you ask me but a lot of people say oh you know we can acknowledge that that is bad right because God won't heal all of your physical ailments because that just doesn't happen and we can see that with our own eyes. A lot of people go back to that same rhetoric of the prosperity gospel preachers saying you just don't have enough faith you're just not believing in God enough. In certain areas like anxiety for instance I struggle with anxiety and there's an aspect to that for sure that is my lack of faith in God sometimes right because it's like you know I got to be trusting him more that's an aspect of it but we also need to realize that there are chemical aspects as well and biological aspects of anxiety and certain personalities and and so both these things can be true when you say oh you're not having enough faith that's why you have anxiety you're discounting that whole biological aspect of what this person is going through. Unfortunately a lot of people have come back with this same kind of prosperity mumbo jumbo that says you don't have enough faith and that's why you're experiencing mental illness and so all those people that are Bible loving Bible believing God glorifying Christians they fall through the cracks because all of a sudden they're told that they're doing something so fatally wrong that they're having these debilitating mental illnesses rise up in them. How does this impact the individual? Well think about it maybe you've experienced this you're dealing with these things somebody's telling you you're not having enough faith and that's why you're experiencing mental illness that produces a lot of shame within a person because you might start to believe it you say okay well maybe I'm not believing God enough and then you try to believe God more and even the Bible talks about faith of a mustard seed but you know you have maybe more than a faith of a mustard seed but yet you still have this kind of anxiety and it's like this like thing where every time something happens you just you have a panic attack or whatever else and somebody's saying that's because of your sin and so that leads you to isolate yourself and you're isolating yourself more and more and more because you don't want to admit that you're going through this because you don't want to be shamed and condemned by somebody else that says you're not you're not doing the Christian thing right Christian shouldn't be going through this that's an isolating experience and if you've gone through that I'm so sorry I'm so sorry you see shame closes us off from others it closes us off from God it distorts our perspective of ourself and it distorts our perspective of God because if those people in our church or in our communities that are condemning us they are in a way are representative of how God actually sees us you know when you hear a pastor or somebody in the church or an elder or a fellow congregant you know tell you you're you know you're not having enough feet that's why you're experiencing the things right that's how you see God right God is this kind of like belligerent angry father that's telling you you're not doing it right you're not doing enough to be healed you're not you know believing enough to be healed the challenge is for us as regular people maybe you're a leader at a church or maybe you're just a regular congregant you might struggle with mental in this you might not how can you provide a space for the people in your lives that struggle with these things to be heard to be seen to be loved like this is this is what we would all strive for so the goal here to me and I think about this all the time I want to be a curious and compassionate person so a curious person asks lots of questions and is curious a lot about a person's life but then when they're you know given the response they're hostile or maybe more judgmental or holier than now to them a person that is compassionate right you know hear a little bit about your story and your struggle and you know affirm you and you know that's okay and be a little bit loving but it doesn't go any deeper than that the people that you want to walk with the people that are kind of those instruments of of God's healing in people in lives in communities those people that are willing to go deeper that are going to ask questions deep questions and they're going to listen and they're instead of condemning or going immediately to no actually like that's right do this and they're kind of being compassionate to them showing them God's love I think it's important to recognize what kind of person you are where your struggle is so there are some truth people and those truth people they're all about kind of right and wrong solutions fixes all that kind of thing and those people that's good like right like truth is is important and there's love people and love people are just always affirming and they're always like you know non-confrontational and they'll never give you any pushback and that kind of thing the goal here is to recognize your weakness so if you're a truth person how can I actually not needlessly offend someone or be more confrontational than necessary and how can I speak this truth and love and for the love person well am I just compromising and being too much of a kind of like a non-confrontational when actually I should speak up a little bit and and try to speak up for truth and point this person to truth and actually thinking through and discerning things so you need to know where you are on the spectrum so that you can kind of compensate for those things as you're seeking to encounter these people you know that your mom your your sisters your brother these are people at church your cousins whoever that may be know your struggle know where you're leaning where you need to kind of like okay I'm I'm tend to be more confrontational here and this person is telling me about their struggle I gotta ease into it so they can know that there's a safe space for them to share you gotta know your ditch if you struggle with mental health issues and obviously there are plenty of them and I can't address them all here I can just speak from experience one of the best things for me was to be honest with myself about what I was experiencing and that didn't make me a worse Christian growing up I felt like I was alone in terms of the people that were around me and the guys that were my age I felt like they were really put together they had no issues whatsoever and that my issues made me weak and I felt like a weak person that really took away a lot of my confidence and even to this day I'm still trying to find that and find my my identity because I still I feel that a lot but I want to know ultimately that God is with me like that needs to be an imminent reality and and perceiving his presence and his power in my life regardless of the struggles that I'm experiencing and knowing that I can put my cares on him for he cares for me even though I may experience really tough things really tough emotions those things don't need to consume me and those things don't need to define me Christ is the one who defines me I would love to hear from you guys how you've navigated these kind of issues of mental health whether that's with yourself or Pete other people in your life I would love to hear from you thanks so much for watching guys if you enjoyed this video subscribe down below because I'm putting out new videos all the time a huge shout out to everyone on patreon thank you so much for your support in this ministry of helping people follow Jesus daily if you want to help support what I'm doing here I did a link in my description thanks again for watching and I will see you next time God bless