Spiritual resources for counseling, though not automatically effective, are, when used with wisdom, supernaturally effective.
—Gary Gulbranson
For over a year I counseled a woman whose problems stemmed primarily from abuse. Throughout her life she had been physically and emotionally mistreated by various men, including her husband. In order to find personal healing and wholeness in her marriage, she desperately needed the spiritual resource of biblical truth.
In our early sessions, however, I knew I couldn’t simply read the blueprint for wedded peace in Ephesians 5, not because I doubted the validity of that passage in her difficult situation but because she would not understand those verses as God intends. For her the term submit had been perverted into be abused.
Still, I had to offer her spiritual resources. The question was how.
Like a surgeon at a state-of-the-art hospital who employs the best technology can offer, a Christian counselor has powerful resources—spiritual resources—to draw on, but they are not automatically helpful. They can even be counterproductive. Over the years, I’ve learned that a counselor must employ spiritual resources with skill, sensitivity, and wisdom. Here is what I have discovered about their proper and beneficial use.
Use Prayer Intentionally
More than any other activity, prayer represents the spiritual side of counseling. Our prayers show we do not ultimately rely on our education, skills, or methods but on God’s Spirit to work in this situation. Prayer is a confession of weakness that allows God’s power to prevail.
Yet prayer can be unspiritual, even a counseling cop-out. A counselor may simply use prayer to produce an emotional catharsis. Or as a convenient way to bring ritual closure to a session—indeed to get rid of someone. Such tactics just cheapen prayer and disillusion the counselee about its effectiveness. Needy people desperately need a model of authentic prayer.
In counseling, prayer can be legitimate. Here’s how I use it:
• I pray before a session to prepare my attitude. I occasionally have an adverse emotional bias about the situation of the counselee. As the father of two daughters, for instance, I have a tough time counseling a man guilty of child abuse. I pray for the compassion of Christ, for sensitivity concerning people’s needs and what causes their behavior, for self-control so that I will not overreact.
• I pray for guidance and insight. My best insights into the puzzle of an individual’s problems have come from the Holy Spirit. I’ve been trained to draw information out of people, and God uses that information to help them, but he sometimes reveals things to me that I couldn’t have known or figured out myself. More often than not this will come in the form of an impression that suggests to me what trail to pursue.
A woman who had been sporadically attending our church with her husband and daughter called one day to request an appointment for herself and her husband. I asked if she could sketch her situation over the phone. “We have some business and marriage problems,” she said.
On the day of their appointment, I prayed beforehand for guidance. “Lord, I sense a lot of things need to be dealt with here, and I need to handle them in their proper order. I’m not sure what that order should be. I need insight so that we can make enough progress to keep them working on their problems.”
As the counseling session began and we got better acquainted, I felt a strong impression to pursue the business problem first. Bringing that up was like popping open a well-shaken Pepsi can. They had gone into business as husband and wife along with another family member. Along the way they had compromised their integrity.
We called a lawyer and set them on course to rectify matters. That brought immediate relief, enabling us in future sessions to resolve their marriage difficulties. The business situation had been the 400-horsepower engine of their conflict and pressure.
• I pray with the counselee at the start of the counseling session. In praying, I am communicating to God and to the counselee that I will draw on my relationship with the Lord to help this person. In addition, the counselee gains some sense of God’s presence; it’s not just the two of us in this office. As Alcoholics Anonymous and the recovery groups have proven, people who feel helpless or short on control need their attention drawn to God.
Such prayer changes the tone of the session. Many counselees are tense. Never having been through the counseling process, they are uncertain and vulnerable. But prayer relaxes them, as Philippians 4:6-7 promises, giving them a measure of the peace of God, which helps us communicate better.
• I assign prayer as homework. During marriage counseling, I always request that a husband and wife pray together at home. Prayer fosters an intimacy that cannot be produced any other way. In addition, they will get more in touch with their feelings in other facets of their lives. If they say they can’t pray together, I suggest they talk about what they need and then pray silently in each other’s presence.
I often use prayer as a homework assignment for the person who says, “I don’t feel close to God. I just can’t talk to him about this.” I want such people to discover that we act our way into a proper way of feeling; we don’t feel our way into a proper way of acting.
• I pray to close the session. This serves as a summary statement in God’s presence, a reinforcement for the counselee that we’ve discussed this in God’s presence, that he has heard what we’ve said, that he knows everything about them and the situation, that he cares more than I ever can. Especially when major sin is involved, people need to sense this bonding with God after they have brought their problems and failings into the open.
At this time I specifically ask God to work in the situation, to provide what is needed, to change what needs changing. This also conveys a message: I expect God actually to do something in their lives.
The nature of my relationship with the counselee determines who voices the closing prayer. Some people walk into my office with such a feeling of isolation or pride that the furthest thing from their mind is the possibility of praying with others about their problems. For them it’s daunting enough just to talk about it. But with time they usually see prayer as something they want to share in.
• I let counselees pray for me. At the end of a session some counselees ask if they can pray for me, a sign, I think, of growing health. Especially because I relate with most of these people in the church context as well, I want them to know this is not a one-way street; I am receptive to what they want to return spiritually. I don’t stay behind a big desk or pulpit, telling them how to straighten out their lives; I’d rather we share in ministry as members of the body of Christ.
Two steps out of my office, they are free to use their spiritual gifts. No matter how devastated at the moment, despite the present feelings of impotence, they can still do something significant for others: they can pray.
In dealing with the weighty, sometimes crushing problems of counseling, I have found, as a complement to prayer, that fasting is helpful. I don’t assign it to counselees, but I fast for my own sake, when I need an emotional and spiritual bath. I also use it as a prayer discipline when dealing with a battery of problems that begin to affect my life, when counseling, for example, a host of people in marital crises and I’m starting to feel pressure in my own marriage. I use fasting to focus my attention on some aspect of God’s character and simplify my desires.
Use Scripture Only After Understanding
In the confusion of their circumstances, hurting people desperately need and want wisdom and words from God. So a pastoral counselor has an incomparable spiritual resource: biblical truth. Scripture is my greatest counseling source for answers, comfort, and guidance.
But, like prayer. Scripture can be misused in counseling, and with greater harm. I can use the Bible in a way that short-circuits the counseling process. The counselee describes a few symptoms of her problem, and immediately verses begin popping into my mind. Before she can finish her story, I want to interrupt with last month’s sermon on “How to Mend Your Marriage.”
If I’m trigger-happy with Scripture, I’ll fail to hear counselees’ true concerns. As a result I won’t understand their problems’ contexts and causes.
Most important, I won’t grasp how they understand the Bible. I can’t hit the target unless I know what the target is. If I go too quickly to “thus saith the Lord” before I know what saith the counselee, I won’t see what the real issues are. So I have found that I have to be patient at drawing people out. That being said, here is how I employ the Bible in counseling.
• Use Scripture not to condemn but to outline a new direction. This is how Jesus used the Word as he ministered to those who were sincere. Christ’s use of Scripture differed radically from the Pharisees, who used Scripture to condemn people. They focused on the past, the sins already committed, and how God’s commandments condemned such conduct.
Christ focused on the present and the future, on how a person could restore his relationship with God and how to maintain that relationship. With the woman caught in adultery, he refused to condemn but rather said, “Go your way and sin no more.” Most people know when they are breaking God’s plan. The resulting destruction eventually forces them to face the need for change.
Jesus was also sensitive to each individual. He understood people intimately and used Scripture in accordance with that insight. He helped people understand their motives and attitudes. Then he offered forgiveness, a fresh start, and a new discipline.
With the woman whose husband was abusing her, I had to first build trust, to let her relate to a masculine authority figure who did not abuse or manipulate her. We dealt with her past, helping her find comfort and healing.
When we came around to discussing her marriage, we began talking about submission. I made it clear that she had no obligation to submit to abuse, but I instructed her that the biblical model for marriage did require her to respect her husband in every way possible.
She went back to her home and did her best to implement what we talked about. It made a difference. Recently her husband dedicated his life to Christ, and they are beginning to develop a healthy marriage.
• Back into Scripture. Several years ago a husband and wife came for counseling. The wife’s biggest complaint was “My husband isn’t romantic enough.” What he heard her saying, though, was “He’s not good enough in bed.” With such a narrow perspective on the term romantic, he was devastated, because he had been raised to take great pride in his ability to perform sexually.
I explored her complaint and discovered she was really saying, “He isn’t attentive to me during the day.” She had simple expectations: she wanted her husband to phone once a day from work to show that he cared what was happening in her life. In addition, she wanted to go out on a date once a month—with him arranging childcare. But she had never communicated this clearly.
I sat down with the husband and broadened his understanding of “romance,” and things quickly improved between them.
People understand terms, including biblical terms, based on their experience. Until I understand their reference points, their context, their definitions, I will often miss the mark with Scripture. In fact most of the time, if I start with the Bible, telling people to “love” or “submit to one another” or “serve one another” without probing how they understand these biblical ideas, they end up feeling frustrated and condemned.
Often, after I’ve discovered what the counselee means by certain biblical phrases, I’ll explain what the phrase means in its context, using their understanding by way of contrast. In addition, I try to help people discover the truth of Scripture for themselves: I assign homework, having them fill out worksheets on appropriate topics, such as abuse, alcohol, or marriage and family, which I’ve developed over the years.
Use Small Groups Strategically
A pastoral counselor can employ the home-field advantage: the church community. Pastors lead a group of people with the potential to serve and love others into well-being. But since such groups can easily turn into quagmires of dysfunction, I lead the groups in strategic ways.
• I supervise involvement. I don’t just send people to support groups or ask them to get involved in Bible studies without watching over them as they get involved. And some people I will discourage altogether from small groups, at least until they can participate in them maturely.
Some individuals hug their hurts. The only way they’ve been able to gain significance is by drawing attention to their problems. In a small group, they will inevitably plunder everyone’s attention and energies, making their needs the centerpiece of meetings.
One young woman I counseled came from a severely dysfunctional home. To get the attention she craved, she created crises; these were the only times her parents would notice her. She developed a drinking problem, then a pattern of dating men who exploited her.
She brought the same pattern into church. Every group she was in sooner or later had to turn its full energies to her. She liked that; she didn’t really want her problems solved.
I tried to help her understand the pattern she had gotten stuck in and teach her new behaviors. But it was slow going.
• I help spawn small groups. Our primary format for developing small groups is what we call Circles of Concern. For a month, on Tuesday evenings, we meet to discuss a particular problem, with the goal of (1) providing useful information about the problem, and (2) encouraging interaction between those facing the common difficulty.
We designed one Circle of Concern for people making decisions about what to do with elderly parents. On the first Tuesday we scheduled a geriatric worker to talk to the group. The second week the supervisor of four nursing homes in our area discussed the legal and financial factors involved in putting a loved one in such care. The third week I taught a Bible study on how God perceives the aging process and on our need to be sensitive toward the elderly. The final Tuesday, a panel of those who had made these decisions told their experiences and the lessons learned.
The benefits of such strategic and intentional groups continue long afterward. Forty people attended that particular month, and many of them have formed small groups for mutual support. In the Circle of Concern they found common ground.
Some of the other topics covered in Circles of Concern: parents with children who grew up in church but are no longer walking with Christ, singles, financial planning, retirement, long-term illness, specific emotions such as anger, and marriage enrichment (one for those married zero to five years, another for those married five to fifteen years, another for those fifteen years and over).
The key in small groups is to be intentional. We know exactly what we want to accomplish, and we make sure the people know what we’re trying to do.
Oversee Worship Attendance
Many years ago some friends referred to me a couple in marital crisis. They had been married ten years, and both were believers. Somehow, though, the husband, a salesman, had maintained a secret lifestyle of drug abuse and adultery. The wife had just discovered it, and when they came into the office, she was angry and bitter.
We began to address the wide range of issues to be dealt with (a process that would take more than a year). But I knew that this, like most problems, was not a problem they could deal with in isolation. They needed the support of the church body and the inspiration and renewal of church worship to stabilize them. At that moment I was again grateful to be a pastor who could oversee their involvement in our church life.
They began attending immediately, which carried them through the initial blowup. Over the next year, I saw the wife weekly, gradually helping her to see how God could restore their relationship. Meanwhile I trained the husband in the discipline of daily Bible study. Over perilous terrain, their marriage was eventually saved, and they have even flourished.
Because people in crisis need all the spiritual input possible, I insist my counselees attend worship. The heart and mind can be healed in public worship in ways that can’t happen in my office. In worship, desperate and lonely people can sense the presence and power of God. Such sunshine through the window is especially vital for those who feel distant from God, separated from him by their problems.
Counselees, though, often need a nudge to get to church. A simple “I’ll be looking for you on Sunday” helps. With some folks I sweeten the pot by suggesting they meet with my wife and I afterward for lunch (my wife has counseling instincts that go hand in hand with my ministry).
Sometimes I’ll introduce them to someone who has weathered similar troubles; attending church with just one friend like that can make the difference between their feeling church is threatening or invitingly familiar. To ease the transition into the relationship, I may have the three of us sit down together. The pastoral counselor can fulfill the vital rule of networking better than anyone.
A counselee’s involvement in church does present two hurdles. After a couple of sessions together, I usually tell a counselee, “A time will come fairly soon when you’ll be sitting in the congregation on Sunday morning and you’ll think. He’s preaching at me, or He’s letting these people know about my problem. But that won’t be the case at all. In the normal course of preaching through Scripture, I unavoidably deal with problems that many people in the congregation have. Be assured I won’t put you at risk, and if you think I am, come and talk to me.”
I also tell them, “Then the time will come when you’re past the crisis, and you’ll think. That man in the pulpit knows more personal things about me than anyone else in the world, and you’ll be uncomfortable with that. You’ll feel like packing your bags, moving elsewhere, and starting over. But you should resist that. What I know about you should be the basis for trust and a strong relationship, not for running away.”
I also watch for signs of pulling away. If they do, I contact them immediately and try to pull them back in.
I mentioned how the salesman entangled in a secret lifestyle of adultery and drugs began a spiritual discipline of daily Bible study. He became virtually compulsive about it. He credits the Scripture with reshaping his thought patterns and strengthening his will to resist what he could not before. Life-controlling habits don’t break easily, but they do fall away when people avail themselves of powerful resources.
Spiritual resources for counseling, though not automatically effective, are supernaturally effective. When used with wisdom, they pierce the very core of a person’s being, as Scripture says, “penetrating even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow,” healing where other methods cannot touch. I would not want to counsel anyone without them.
Copyright © 1992 by Christianity Today
