The New Great Depression: Christopher Cook

Episode Transcript

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The New Great Depression

Guest:Christopher Cook

From the series:Healing What You Can’t Erase (Day 2 of 3)

Air date:February 6, 2025

Christopher:None of us will escape adversity. But when we realize that transformation doesn’t happen in one day, but instead happens daily, and maybe it doesn’t have to be today for someone, because if you’re in the thick of grief, you just need to grieve. You need to be present with it. But there will come a day where you have an opportunity to move forward. No one will move on, but we do have a choice to move forward.

Dave:Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann:And I’m Ann Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave:We’ve never had a guest on our show who I have actually had in my in-ears. And if you’re listening, you’re going, “What is an in-ear? When you’re in a band we have headphones that we call in-ears. They’re usually earbuds. And there’s a band director and a band director can talk to you as a musician and say things. Christopher Cook is sitting over there. You’re hearing him laugh. He was the band director at my church for how many years?

Christopher:Almost a decade.

Dave:Almost a decade. There would be times, I don’t know what your thought, but we’re playing a song and Chris would whisper through and everybody else in the band hears this well.

Ann:I don’t think most of us in the audience know that you guys can talk to each other.

Christopher:Yeah.

Dave:Well, we can’t talk to Chris, but he can talk to us.

Ann:Okay.

Dave:Because like, “Hey, we’re going to go back to the bridge.” I mean, usually we know where we’re going.

Ann:That’s what he says.

Christopher:This is your captain speaking.

Dave:Yeah. Basically you have a talk voice, and every once in a while, you hear Chris go, “Hey Dave, nice lick.” He was always encouraging. I’d be playing bass, and he’d go, “Dude, nice lick right there.” You were never negative. You were always positive.

Christopher:Thank you.

Dave:But I mean, having you on the show is a joy.

Ann:It is Chris.

Christopher:It’s so fun. You guys, I told you this yesterday; I just feel like we’re hanging out, having dinner in your kitchen, and it’s a joy to be here.

Dave:So we’re talking about this journey. You’ve been on this journey your whole life, and you wrote recently a book about it called Healing What You Can’t Erase: Transform Your Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health from the Inside Out. Yesterday we started the conversation; go back if you missed it. We sort of get your backstory, which I think helps the listener or the watcher go, “Oh, this guy knows. He’s lived in the darkness. He’s been in the valley and have dug out.” But as you think about this healing process, we sort of are living in a culture where mental illness, mental struggle is heightened, I think like never before.

Christopher:Indeed.

Dave:Do you think that’s true?

Christopher:Yeah, 40 million adults I think are diagnosed with a level of anxiety, depression every year. I mean, it has skyrocketed even since the pandemic. I’d say today, more than ever, more people are using psychotropic drugs, are seeing a mental health professional. I threw something on social yesterday. I said, “It’s like the new Great Depression,” pun intended.

Ann:Yeah.

Dave:Because of depression and anxiety, it’s the new Great Depression. The headline on, I think it was the USA Today said, “The United States of Anxiety,” and I was like—

Dave:Wow.

Christopher:—”Oh,” and we’ve normalized it. And that’s the scary part because we think, “Oh, this is just the way I am.” I’m like, “That’s not what the Word says.”

Ann:Yeah, that wasn’t God’s plan.

Christopher:That’s not who we are in Christ.

Ann:Chris, did you experience that? –any anxiety and depression?

Christopher:Yes, oh; let’s bring it into the present tense. I’ll just be real and say, yeah. There are days where, especially since my mom’s death and everything that I’ve walked through, hypochondria is real for me. I have no problem being candid. Medical anxiety is tip of the spear for me still. It’s recurring based upon what’s happening in life and I’m learning and I’m growing.

Ann:Aren’t we all?

Christopher:Yeah.

Ann:But I think that would make sense based on you were a little boy when your mom was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

Christopher:Yeah, 11.

Ann:And then you basically became her caretaker for a long time so physical health was a whole part of your life. And I’m guessing, was she eating really healthy and you became very conscious of what to eat and not to eat?

Dave:Nobody eats better than Christopher Cook.

Ann:Oh—

Christopher:Well, but you guys, here, let’s get under the hood of this. For a season it was motivated by fear because if I can check A, B, C, I can control my life and prevent the thing that I fear most. And guess what? The fear, and the stress, was wreaking havoc upon my nervous system, and the cortisol was running through my body and guess what? No matter how many kale salads I ate, the state of my soul was bleak.

The apostle John says this in 3 John 1:2. He says, “Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in physical health, even as”—and in the same degree is what the Greek means—”as your soul prospers.” So my fear and my anxiety about catching something or getting something was shutting down my ability to assimilate the good nutrients I was eating. So we need to pay attention.

Ann:So I’m thinking about you. How old were you when you had the diagnosis?

Christopher:Of MS?

Ann:Yes.

Christopher:Thirty.

Ann:Did you go to the doctor to hear that diagnosis?

Christopher:I did. Carm came with me.

Ann:She did.

Christopher:So my sister, my younger sister came with me. She drove. She took notes.

Ann:Take us back to the aftermath of that, what you were feeling. Because yesterday we talked about how we can be honest, tell God the truth through confession, because we’re either going to hide or we’re going to hide in him. Let me just say, I’ve had a diagnosis with melanoma and fear can grip your heart and this could be a diagnosis of your child, your husband, a grandparent, a parent, anybody that you love, or yourself and you are gripped with fear.

So tell me what that conversation with God sounded like, but what was the guts of it and now where are you? What would that conversation now sound like and how did you get there?

Dave:Man, there’s a lot of questions right there.

Ann:I know, and that might take us into tomorrow—

Christopher:It’s okay.

Ann:—but I want to hear the beginning of it.

Christopher:Yep. When the initial diagnosis came in, in September of 2013, mind you, I wasn’t even a year into grieving my mom’s death, so I was still in shock. So when the diagnosis came in, it was like, “Wait, what?” It felt like I was in a bad dream. Christmas of 2013, I remember laying in bed on Christmas Day 2013 alone, big tears running down my face, but they were different. The weight of depression upon my soul was so great. I was watching TV, and I remember having the distinct thought, “I do not want to live anymore.” That’s when things got really real. And at this point I said to the Lord, “Just take me home.”

Now, I just want to be clear for the listeners, there was no suicidal ideation because that is a very, very sensitive subject for which we have a lot of compassion on those who have walked others through that level of depression. But it was a place where I said, “I can’t do this anymore.” And there was a give up actually. I think maybe that’s the phrase.

Ann:Yes.

Christopher:There was a, that’s when the spirit broke.

Dave:Was it like a surrender give up?

Christopher:It wasn’t a surrender I give up. It was, “What’s the point?” give up. It was give up as in “I resign, I quit. I’m done.” That season was so hard because I felt like if there was a big pit and a ladder climbing up to the surface, I got thrown way overboard. So I had the tools to fight, to cope, but I didn’t want to anymore. I didn’t care. That’s what that moment was like.

Ann:And I think there’s people that could be listening that they feel like that right now or maybe—

Dave:—they have a child.

Ann:—or they have a child that is right there and then that starts us as a parent on our panic streak.

Dave:So what do you say to that guy or that gal—

Ann:Or that momma.

Dave:—who’s listening right now and they’re like, “That’s me right here,” or to that parent who’s got a child—

Ann:That’s right there.

Dave:Or what would you say to yourself now looking back in that moment Christmas morning, you’ve given up.

Christopher:You said moments ago, you asked me, “Chris, was it surrender?” And I said, “No, it wasn’t surrender” because surrender I believe is the first step to healing. Here’s what I mean. I said this yesterday on the show, the day that we decide that what Jesus did for us is greater than what happened to us, is the day that everything is okay; no, that we take the first step forward to transformation. Jesus asked this question in the scriptures a lot, “What do you want me to do for you?” Do y’all think that Jesus was asking that question because He didn’t know the answer, or He was curious? No, he was asking a rhetorical question.

Dave:You really want to be healed?

Christopher:Yes. And so just to fast forward in my narrative a little bit, that happened, that exact moment happened in October of 2014 after a year of anxiety, depression, 20 panic attacks a day, and I’m not exaggerating, 20 plus panic attacks every single day. I was watching the Detroit Pistons at home on a Saturday night. I was so done, you guys. And I turned off the TV and I said, in a frustrated way, “Lord, I love you, but I can’t live like this anymore. You got to do something.” And he didn’t say, “You know what, Chris? It’s been a hard two years. You’re healed. I’m going to take care of this.” He said, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Ann:And He could have just been “Okay,” but He asked a question.

Christopher:And I knew in that moment, Ann, that I had been set up because Jesus asked that question in the scriptures. And again, are we willing to take responsibility for the fact that our deficiencies in life cannot be our sufficiency for life?

Again, here’s the statement, and I think this is key for folks joined with us today. Whatever you’re walking through, maybe someone’s joined with us today and they just got served divorce papers or someone just lost a job, or a child is going through chronic disease or whatever. When we move forward in life, there will come this inflection moment where we decide that the pain of regret will be greater than the pain of making a change. Because change hurts.

So for me, in my story when he says, what do you want me to do for you? I realized, oh, I had to take responsibility, not for the healing itself, but for my willingness to partner with Him to say yes. That gets me to part of the answer of the question. The first step is surrender. Surrender is not giving up. It’s giving in.

Ann:That’s a big difference.

Christopher:Huge difference.

Dave:What do you mean giving in?

Christopher:Giving into a process of confrontation, of dysfunctional behaviors, dysfunctional beliefs, confronting a broken spirit, and in the process of healing that would lead to transformation. I say on my show often; that transformation does not happen in one day. It happens daily.

I think we get frustrated because life’s really hard for a lot of people. None of us will escape adversity. But when we realize that transformation doesn’t happen in one day, but instead happens daily, this process of surrender to truth, surrendering to giving Jesus the outer garments of fear and guilt and victimhood and shame.

Folks, listen, I need to pause and say this because I don’t want to unintentionally invalidate the very, very adverse, scary life experiences someone’s walking through right now. I don’t want to invalidate it, but there will come a day and maybe it doesn’t have to be today for someone because if you’re in the thick of grief, you just need to grieve. You need to be present with it. But there will come a day where you have an opportunity to move forward. No one will move on, but we do have a choice to move forward.

Ann:Well, I think it’s interesting to even ponder that question of Jesus asking, “What do you want me to do for you?” If He asked me that question in a hard marriage season, “What do you want me to do for you?” the top thing that would come out of my mouth would’ve been “First, I want you to change Dave.” And if I was going through something with my kids, “I want you to change this that’s happening in my kids.” But if I sat with the Lord long enough and I was in Him—

Christopher:Well, because He reveals the nature of our heart—

Ann:Exactly.

Christopher:—and that’s it. This is the whole nature of getting into His presence. We talked about this yesterday. He is good with our honesty. He meets us where we are, not where we pretend to be. We got to give him our stuff, but we got to wait because what the Holy Spirit does is reveals—

Ann:That’s it.

Christopher:—the motivations of the heart.

Ann:—of our heart. And so by even saying at the top of my mouth, “I want you to change Dave,” just that thought as I say it now, I know that I would’ve said, “But Lord, it’s not about Dave.”

Christopher:Can I ask you a question? So this is interesting.

Dave:We’re now on Chris’s show.

Christopher:No.

Ann:No, wait, I would’ve said it’s about me. It’s about surrender. So go ahead.

Christopher:Well, the reason I ask this is because I just think about folks who are hanging out with us today and they’re saying, “Wait a minute. What happens when I ask that question?” And my question to them is, “Oh, it’s so that the Holy Spirit can ask you this question.” So that what; “Why?” In other words, if this is about Dave, “Why Ann, why?” So I can maintain control. What’s our greatest fear in life? For a lot of people it’s the fear of losing control.

Dave:Right.

Ann:That was me.

Christopher:So that the Holy Spirit can get to “Yeah, but Ann, why? If I give you the ability or if I change him, why? So that what?” Well, so that I can maintain my level of control.

Ann:Yes.

Christopher:And the Lord’s like “Not on my watch. Because I’m interested in the transformation of your heart by the renewal of your mind.”

Ann:So now if we ask that question, if He says, we say about our kids, “God, I just want you to change this in my child.” And He would say, “Why?” It just reveals so much, because my own security, my fear of what others are thinking, that’s just—isn’t He just such a genius to ask questions?

Christopher:He’s truly the best. The three of us were talking in the airport yesterday about Dallas Willard’s new book and just not necessarily a plug for his book, but he was talking in chapter one about the methodology by which Jesus taught. He didn’t say, “Here’s the subject. Here’s the answers. Memorize this set of facts.” Jesus showed a methodology that would tangle up with the issues of the heart so that we could respond to life maturely and live in the kingdom.

Jesus taught us how to live in the kingdom and he will use any and all circumstances to get to the issues of the heart, to reveal the issues of the heart, to deal with the issues of the heart, to cause us to grow and mature. John 15, Jesus said, listen, I’m pruning you so that you bear more excellent fruit. He is so committed you guys to our growth and to our maturity, that He will allow the issues of the heart to get dialed up and brought to the surface so that He can deal with them as a good Father with our willing partnership so that we can move on to maturity. But this gets all messed up if we have a skewed view of Him as a good dad.

Dave:And I also think you said earlier that it’s daily.

Christopher:Amen Dave.

Dave:I think when we’re honest and God says, “What do you want?” We want it now.

Ann:Yes.

Christopher:Yes!

Dave:We don’t want it. I want my husband to love and cherish me better. And God’s answer is probably, I’m working on it. It’s actually happening. It’s going to take five years. But we want it now.

Christopher:That’s right.

Dave:When you were dealing with the grief in your mom, you want out now and he said, ”Let’s go daily.”

Ann:Oh, I have a plan. And even hearing all your scripture memorization from over the years—

Christopher:That was part of it.

Ann:—that was part of it.

Christopher:Oh man.

Ann:Yeah.

Dave:Take us back. So if you’re saying, “Okay, God, I want this,” and you said it’s daily, “Here you are,” how has that journey gone? I mean, you said earlier it’s still this. It isn’t just, I took the process for a couple years and now I’m good. It’s like, do you still hide? Do you still feel shame?

Christopher:There’s the temptation to.

Dave:Yeah.

Christopher:Yeah, because He’s always inviting us into the process of transformation, but we have free will and we don’t have to say yes to it. And so when I experience loss or pain, I can make the choice to self-protect and it—

Ann:What’s that look like?

Christopher:Yeah. I make a determination in my heart that I’m just going to do it the way I want to do it. I’m going to strategize my way out of this.

Ann:You’re good at strategy too.

Christopher:I am, but it’s what I said yesterday on the show. Any strength over extended becomes a liability. The very thing that the Lord gave to me for the benefit of His kingdom is now used to self-protect or self-promote or keep myself insulated and isolated from Him, and it’s no way to live.

Ann:How do you self-protect? Do you think you self-protect?

Dave:I perform.

Ann:I think I self-protect by being independent, by not needing people’s help.

Christopher:I can relate to that, Ann.

Ann:Of just like—

Dave:She doesn’t let anybody help her. She helps everybody but when somebody says, “I want to do something,” she says, “No, no, no, I’m good. I’m good.” You always do that.

Ann:Chris, I’ve allowed you. You’ve made—didn’t you make me soup?

Christopher:Yes.

Ann:You made, yes.

Christopher:I remember that.

Ann:That was so hard for me to say yes.

Christopher:Really? Was it for your birthday or something like that?

Ann:Yeah, and I wasn’t feeling well.

Christopher:Right. I remember that.

Ann:And you’re like, “I’m going to make this broth.” And I was so tempted, but there’s a part of me that self-protects like, “No, I’m fine. I’m fine, I’m fine.” And that’s back for I’m not worthy enough to receive someone’s help.

Christopher:Exactly right. There’s those subconscious narratives: I am, I am, I am.

Ann:So I think this stuff is incredible, but I’m also thinking as we went back to that, “What do you want me to do for you?” I think that would be a really good question to ask our kids; of asking them to ask Jesus, “What would you want Jesus to do for you? And our kids if they’re teenagers—that’s what I’m saying to ask that age—they’d probably say, “To get me out of this situation,” or “To help me not be so stressed about the exams,” or “To take away my depression.” I know you’re not a parent, but what would your response be? Because you’re really good at this.

Christopher:Thank you.

Ann:And you’ve locked into a lot of this inner life with Jesus. If they said that as their answer, when the parent said, “What do you want Jesus to do for you?” And they said, “I just want to be out of this depression or anxiety.”

Christopher:Set them free Jesus, like whatever that that is. One of the things as a pastor, as a leader of people I’ve mentored over the years, I’ve never wanted to teach people what to think. I’ve wanted to teach them how to think. So I would suppose—again, I’m not a parent, but I would say to the Lord, “Do whatever you need to do in them so actually the muscles grow.”

Ann:Oh, Chris, that’s the scariest prayer of a parent.

Christopher:But I think it comes with trust too. When we dedicate our kids to the Lord, we’re recognizing that he actually has them in his heart way more than we ever could. And what I do know is, in this exact moment in time, we need folks, believers, disciples of Jesus who have muscles of character and endurance and steadfastness and enduring faith because we’re living in a culture with an onslaught of secularism. And so what happens is my prayer is not only that I have faith in Him, but that I have His faith.

Galatians 2, the King James does this brilliantly. It refers to us as having the faith not in Christ but faith of Christ. Think about the paradigmatic shift. If I have my faith in Him, that leads me to have the faith of Christ that then empowers me to sleep in the boat in the storm. Faith in Christ says, “Jesus, come save me,” and that’s good and right. Call upon the name of the Lord and you’ll be saved. That’s what the scriptures say.

But Paul wrote this in Romans that Jesus was the first born among many brethren. That means that the faith of Christ allows me to sleep in storms. The faith of Christ empowers me to count it all joy. Whenever we face trials of various kinds, knowing that the testing of our faith produces character, character, endurance, perseverance. How do those muscles grow? I think that’d be my prayer is, “Lord, you know, you know best. I want their muscles to grow so that they can live with enduring faith answers to prayer with character.”

Ann:I know that I’ve shared this before, but I have a place where I go, and I lay my big burdens down before Jesus. It’s basically this big rock garden.

Dave:The garden; it’s a garden.

Ann:It’s where Cody proposed to Jenna. It’s just a place; I have names on these big rocks and our kids and our grandkids, or it’s just things that I can’t carry any longer. And I lay them on this big rock pile. And one day as I did that with one of our kids, I like symbolism kind of stuff. I like in scriptures of these memorials of rocks of what God has done.

And this one day I decided I’m going to write this child’s name on this piece of paper, lay it under this rock. And then I lit this little piece of paper on fire, and I let it burn. But it was my surrender, like I’m taking all the weight off of myself, all the control, all the ways that I’m trying to maneuver and manipulate, God, and I’m giving this child—at that time, it was this child. It could be a hundred different things—to You. All of me, I’m giving Him total surrender, not only in my life but his life. He’s yours and I’m going to trust you. And then I burnt that little thing up.

And you know what happened? This little plant started to grow underneath this rock. And I’m sure it was just a plant, but it’s never grown there before. And it was the shapes of this little plant were hearts. I don’t know if it was just coincidence or this beautiful little picture of God kind of acknowledging my surrender of not only my life but my child’s life. The things that we hold onto the most dearly, God is just waiting to hold them for us and hold our own lives. He’s holding us in the palm of His hands because He loves us.

Christopher:He’s so faithful.

Ann:So faithful.

Christopher:And I think maybe that’s where we can give people a period on the sentence today is to say, listen, none of us escape adversity in life. But my life is testament to the fact that he is so faithful. He is faithful, actually, and such a man of His word. He’s the best dad. He’ll get in the trenches with me. He’ll let me ugly cry it, throw a fit, whatever I want to do because He’s a faithful, steadfast Father.

Dave:And I tell you what, that’s Chris talking about what he wrote about Healing What You Can’t Erase. We’d love to send you this book for any amount of donation to FamilyLife. You send a donation. We’ll send you this book. Just go to FamilyLifeToday.com or you can give us a call at 1-800-358-6329. That’s 1-800-“F” as in Family, “L” as in Life, and the word “TODAY.”

Ann:And did you know that Dave and I have a team at FamilyLife Today ready to pray for you. And it’s this incredible honor and a privilege to lift your name up to God. So if you need prayer, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. I really mean that. Head on over to FamilyLife.com/Prayforme. Again, that’s FamilyLife.com/Prayforme and tell us how we can pray. And again, we are not kidding. Dave and I have a prayer team specifically dedicated to praying for our listeners, and I pray for some of these while I’m on my walks with God, I just pray. I will pray for you. And Dave, you always fast on Fridays and that’s when you pray.

Dave:Yeah, I take the whole day and instead of eating food, I’m praying and I’m praying for my family, but I’m also praying for you and your family. And isn’t that a great thing to know that someone’s praying for you?

Ann:Yes.

Dave:And if it’s not, Ann and I praying for you, someone from our small prayer team will pray for you by name. We love to do it. So go to FamilyLife.com/Prayforme and submit your request. And I mean, do it right now. We would love to pray for you today.

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