This is for religious Christians

For the last year i have been serious and trying to practice faith as much as possible. So i have the following question for christian SAer's who are religious and passionate about this: why hasn't god cured your social anxiety? I asked many of the evangelists and they always tell me god will cure my social anxiety if i do everything in his will, but sometimes i see religious christian SAer's who still have social anxiety so this sometimes makes me skeptical. It's hard to stay faithful when i see this, just being honest.

I think it comes down to dna. Some people naturally have more cortisol. I think having sa can make you unique in some ways. It sucks a lot but I think it's made me into someone with a higher perspective of others feelings. Also it clears out people who won't accept you for who you are. It can also make you less likely to sin because I think it makes you think more before acting. Hope this helps!

The way I see it is we live in a imperfect world. Everyone has problems. God helps those who help themselves. We have to put in the hard work if we want to get better. You can't expect to just pray and be cured one day. Though I do believe miracles are possible.

That's why it takes faith to believe in God. It would be too easy to believe if he appeared to the whole world at once.

I'm not a devout Christian, but going off of what I was taught growing up in a religious school, an explanation that you may or may not have heard is that God puts in place challenges as a test (usually of faith).

Faith is not a cure-all for physical and mental ailments. Put your cares in God's hands and go from there. Your struggles, when joined to the cross, have redemptive value. Also, look into natural and psychological cures from your struggles (counseling, medication possibly). Trying to go the spirituality-only root does not help when the issue is psychological. I'll pray for you.

I don't expect God to cure my SA. Paul was given a "thorn in the flesh" which he asked God to remove, but God refused.

"Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." [2 cor 12:7-10]

I think our struggles are often good for us, though we may not like it. We often learn and grow the most when in difficult situations. The way I see it; God is good and God loves me, and God has made me the way I am with my particular set of social difficulties for a reason. Through trying to deal with my social problems I've become stronger, more perseverant, I've become a more compassionate person, and I've learnt to be grateful for my lot in life. I may not live as socially at ease as most people, but I have small successes here and there. I have a small group of loved ones, and I'm grateful for that. It's better than nothing.

Asking God to cure you of Social Anxiety is similar to, I would say, asking him to give you the ability to run a marathon in under 4 hours. Is it something an all powerful God could do at the snap of His fingers? I would say most definitely. But it's not something He would do. Or should. It's something you're able to accomplish on your own. If you want to improve your social anxiety, like you would your marathon time, you have to put the work in. Asking for help, strength, support, or any of those things (not just from God, other people as well) makes a lot more sense. Try therapy if you haven't already. Have your family and friends push you to do things you don't think you can. And maybe ask God for help when challenging yourself. It will be difficult at times, and asking for that push could very much help you. And I would say that's the best way your religious beliefs can help you improve. Just praying tomorrow you're going to be different won't.

Because believing in God is about more than just finding a cure for your SA.

Fear is one of those things a person needs to overcome themselves. If theoretically it were possible for a cosmic being to remove it from you with no effort on your part, then you'd probably feel doubt in yourself that you can overcome your fears. And that doubt would probably lead you right back to social anxiety lol.

I'm Christian so I've prayed about this too. What I think is that God expects us to take action. Although he could heal us immediately, we sort of have to get ourselves out of the mess we got ourselves into. The Bible says we reap what we sew. I made choices in my life that made me how I am today. Now I need to start making better choices to turn things around and just trust that God will be there to help me through if I put my faith in him. Just because we pray for something, however, it doesn't mean he's going to give it to us immediately with us having to do nothing.

I know you may say people are born with SA, so how could they have chose this? I know I've been sort of on the quieter side since I was little, though I was still able to socialize, connect with people, and make friends. I had a social life. Now, I struggle greatly with all of that. The choices that got me here are things like choosing to remain in my comfort zone too much throughout school. If I could go back, I'd have put myself out there a lot more in high school. I would've tried actually talking to girls and if I got rejected, so what. If people didn't like me, so what. I know I would've been building myself to a better future, so none of that would've mattered. It would've simply been my testing ground.

If I had the mindset I have now back then, I think I'd be in a much better place. It's my fault. I accept responsibility for my problems. Now I want to fix them. It's through all these painful mistakes and experiences that I'm learning more life principles that I can apply to my life.