by Liz Keltner
For the last few years, I have been supported by our church’s Women’s Seminary Scholarship to complete five biblical counseling courses through the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation. Although a wonderful framework to build onto my own professional clinical degree, these classes have convinced me that biblical counseling applies to any believer within the local church.
Why is it important for all members of the Church to apply biblical counseling?
It’s important for us to join with fellow sufferers as they experience the “pangs of death” around us and to walk alongside them as they search for the hope of glory that is found in Christ.
“This Jesus…God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24)
What are the pangs of death that Christ came to uproot? The pangs of death are referred to in Romans as the groaning of all creation. It is what the Psalmist refers to as the valley of the shadow of death. It is what Jesus describes as “trouble in this world” (John 16:33). It is when we feel the realities of a sinful and broken world enter our stories so vividly and, at times, so haunting.
When she receives the text that drops her throat to her stomach and sends her on a journey of grief and loss.
When he tosses and turns all night, waking up exhausted and haunted by the demons in his own soul.
When the childhood trauma that can’t be suppressed anymore suddenly implodes everything around her.
As counselors, we give voice to the stories of suffering that are often not spoken of on a Sunday morning. These stories of suffering are sacred places for people who are often met with fear or hesitation by members of the Church. It can feel too overwhelming, too messy, or too hopeless. We may feel ill-equipped to enter into these stories. We all also feel fear as humans who aren’t made to live in a place of chaos and decay.
But as Christians, what if giving voice to our suffering revealed more about God’s love for us than our efforts to cover it up?
The Hope of Glory
If we are joined with Jesus, we can give voice to all of the suffering, because we know that Christ came to uproot all of it. In fact, when we refuse to give voice to the full stories of suffering, we refuse to showcase the extent of God’s glory and redemption in Christ.
Because we have “Christ in us, who is the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). We do not just offer trite phrases or good advice to hurting souls. Instead, we offer Jesus, who IS hope Himself. This was one of the greatest concepts I took away from David Powlison’s class on Dynamics of Biblical Change. One of the eight questions Powlison highlights when walking through trials with another believer is, “Who is God in this?”
Biblical counseling is an avenue to give a voice to the stories of suffering, walk with others through it, and simply be there with other believers as they search for who God is in their stories. This might happen in the counseling room. If you want to go to counseling but feel hesitant, here is your nudge to try it. I have greatly benefited from professional counseling. And we can all practice the principles of biblical counseling in our very own Church community!
Even as I was taking these classes, listening to lectures and writing papers, I was given permission to allow my own stories of suffering to be known by others in our church. I was invited to quietly search for who God is as I walked in a valley that echoed with my own “pangs of death.” Just as I haven’t been able to find the answers that tie my story up with a pretty bow, we, as biblical counselors, don’t need to provide answers or advice or a reason for why someone is suffering the way they are. We can simply get close and listen and ask, “Who is God right now?” We can look at the Shepherd who walks beside us and doesn’t just offer us hope, but is hope Himself.
Safety in the Shepherd
My three-year-old daughter likes to play “Shepherd,” where she has me hide her two sheep stuffed animals around the house, and she carries around a broom for her staff. She searches all around for her sheep and tries to rescue them from, as the Jesus storybook Bible puts it, “the dark, scary, lonely places.” She has to go to those places herself and crawl under the kitchen table to get her sheep before she can rescue them from the lions and wolves lurking behind the couch. “I got you,” she says as she cradles the sheep in her arms and rocks them. “You are safe.”
So why apply biblical counseling to our everyday relationships within the Church? Why get close to someone’s story of pain? Because we are all closer to these “pangs of death” than we dare say aloud. Yet ironically, as we come closer to the realities of death and its effects on our own lives, we come closer to the person who loosed the pangs of death. He chose to have His story enter our stories, even the dark and haunting ones. He chose to enter them because He couldn't be held down by them. He is hope who wraps Himself around our stories and overtakes them with His very presence.
That’s why counseling should be happening within the Church, both in professional settings and within our conversations, ministries, and Bible studies. We can have confidence in approaching people in their brokenness. We can enter their lives, listen to the sacred parts of their story where they feel the pangs of death all around them, and sit with them as they ask, who is God? If they are joined to Christ, they hold onto the only one who can redefine their story.
In Jesus, death gives way to life.
Evil gives way to goodness.
Trauma gives way to healing.
Darkness gives way to light.
Dread gives way to relief.
Anxiety gives way to security.
Overworking gives way to rest.
Despair gives way to hope.
Entering other people’s stories in the church may sometimes be difficult, risky, or even disheartening. But we can keep coming back to practice biblical counseling with one another because we know the end of the story that prevails above all. One day we will shed all of the shadows that haunt us in our stories and be overtaken and overwhelmed by Christ, the hope of glory!
If you are interested in applying for our Women’s Seminary Scholarship to advance your biblical wisdom, send an email to missions@graceandpeacecos.org!
