The last post ended with 3 different aspects of Biblical counseling:
- how you are doing
- how God and His promises are infinitely better than all other false gods, and
- how to pray the promises of God into your life.
KNOWING ANOTHER PERSON – HOW ARE YOU DOING?
Scripture calls us to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15). The heart of counseling is being personal. What is our view of people? The right answer is that people have infinite worth as image-bearers of God. But truth be told, more often than not, people can be viewed as an inconvenience or hassle. We have to remember that on our own, we can't love people. I often forget that when I mess up. Thanks be to God for the Holy Spirit, who bears the fruits of love, joy, peace, etc... in our lives. We need the Spirit moment by moment if we want any hope of walking faithfully in Christ.
FOLLOW UP
One indication of our love for people is whether we follow up with them. If they share a struggle or prayer request, and we tell them that we'll pray for them, do we do it? Sometimes we forget! But, if we carry someone in our heart and they matter to us, we will remember to pray and even ask them about it later on.
MOVING TOWARDS
Another aspect of loving people is learning to move towards another person. What is moving towards? Have you ever experienced a personal connection with someone to the point where you could say, “He understands me!” It could be as simple as having the same interests or hobby or liking the same sports team. Because of that shared value or experience, there is a bond- you know them, and they know you.
To grow in loving others, we have to grow in our ability to know people. There's certainly nothing wrong with talking about the Philadelphia Eagles (or any other sports team). But, if that's all we ever talk about, we haven't gone deeper. We must learn to move one more step. For example, we can ask, “Why do you love the Eagles so much?”
Emotions get us down to who or what we really love. What moves you? What are you into? How are you feeling? What are you learning? These are the types of questions that move us towards another person so we can apply scripture into our lives and then serve them by asking, “How can I pray for you?”
WHEN IN DOUBT, ASK ONE MORE QUESTION
When moving towards another person, having humility is critical. We don't know all the answers and we haven't figured out everything. Humility should move us to ask questions to clarify and understand, avoiding the problem of jumping to conclusions. How often have we formed an opinion or a judgment, only to realize later that we were missing a critical piece of information?
Our professor shared a story in his own life about his daughter always studied in the noisiest part of the house. It was exact opposite for what he (and many other people) would do. He was tempted to judge her and look down on her, until he asked one more question: “Why do you study in the nosiest part of the house?” For her, silence was distracting, and she needed the noise to concentrate. Our temptation is to think of moral categories of right and wrong without asking one more question.
This is definitely not easy! In fact, it is impossible without God's help. If our only boast is Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 10:17 and many other places), our sinful nature would rather boast in ourselves.
In future posts, I'll go into how this process of "moving towards" and "asking one more question" leads us into entering the world of another person. And when we're walking alongside with someone (as a fellow-traveler who also needs God's grace), we're in a position to make meaningful connections between our lives and scripture.
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