Quick note of praise: I believe I have been writing this blog for close to
three years (if not longer). That means well over one hundred writings. It
is often the case that I have no idea what I am going to write about.
Yet,
to God’s praise, every week He lays something on my heart that I can use to
bring Him glory. The below writing is just another example of this. Praise
His name!
Offering people counsel is challenging. I have been counseling people for
decades now and it hasn’t gotten any easier. Each person and each situation
they bring introduces many variables. Then of course there is the factor of
change. Perhaps this may come as news to you but many people who enter into
counseling don’t want to change, they just want to feel better or want
someone else to change. One of my struggles has been to lead them to
significant lasting change, but in the secular realm I find myself very
limited in my ability to do this. Wisdom that is void of God is grossly
insufficient. Yet, in my workplace this is the type of wisdom I must offer
even though I have a whole storehouse of biblical wisdom that would serve my
client infinitely better. For me the proposition often feels like someone
who come to me because they are thirsty and the best I can offer them is a
few drops from a faulty faucet.
I am presently reading as book called, “Being there – how to love those who
are hurting” by Dave Furman. This week I came across this passage and after
reading it, I found myself saying, “Now that is real counseling.”
Here it is:
“Counseling is not primarily an attempt to fix problems, but an attempt to
reorient worship from created things to the Creator by means of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. The goal of counseling is not simply to provide specific
guidance for the person’s problems but to uncover what his heart is
worshiping and to offer redemptive remedies for his struggles. Counseling
announces the truth of the gospel with the hope that the person will turn
from sin and cling to Christ”.
I must tell you that as my mind scans back over the hundreds of clients I
have had, if I had by God’s grace completed what was just described they
would have been infinitely better than how I left them. Please understand me
when I say that not all counseling situations require a focus on a person’s
sinfulness because many have come before me with deep wounds that have been
caused by other people’s sins. However, somewhere in the midst of each
person’s problems is the issue of sin and a less than wholehearted worship
of God and obedience to His word. I can trace so many problems I have heard
in counseling back to a worship of someone or something other than God and a
lack of clinging to Him.
If you have never been in counseling and don’t intend to be in counseling
perhaps I lost you two paragraphs back. Since I entertain this is possible,
let me close by offering something that applies to all of us.
We are all challenged every day to reorient our worship from created things
to the Creator. In pursuit of this, let us ask God to reveal to us the
things our heart is worshiping other than Him and in so doing, join our
forefather King David who wrote:
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting
Psalm 139: 23-24
For Him,