Several years ago “Jim” shared his story with me. His uncle had repeatedly sexually abused him while he was in elementary school. Jim never told a soul about the damage in his soul until he finally found the courage to tell a pastoral counselor.
“Bob, it was incredibly hard. I felt so ashamed, but I got the words out—sobbing as I shared. The second I finished, my counselor whipped out his Bible, turned to Genesis 3, and preached a thirty-minute message on sin. I knew that I was a sinner, but I’m clueless as to how my counselor intended to relate that passage to my situation. At that second, did I need a sermon on sin?”
Jim did not return for his second session with his pastoral counselor. Instead, he arranged an appointment with a professional Christian counselor.
“Bob, at first things went well. My counselor seemed to have compassion for what I went through. But after two months of counseling, I was ready to have him help me move beyond empathy. I knew that I wasn’t loving my wife and kids like Christ wanted me to. But my counselor kept telling me that I was too damaged to love the way I wanted to love.”
It is the tale of two counselors—the alltoo- common tale of two Christian counselors. One hears a sordid story of sexual abuse and immediately responds to his sobbing counselee with a sermon on sin. The second hears his counselee’s longing to move beyond damage to dignity and informs him that he’s too disabled to fully function.
The tale of Jim’s two counselors exposes a common problem in Christian counseling. We tend to focus either on suffering or on sinning. We see our counselee either as a victim to be comforted, or as a sinner to be confronted. Biblical counseling is not either/or. It is both/ and—both soul care for suffering and spiritual direction for sinning.
British Christian psychiatrist Frank Lake says it well, “Pastoral care is defective unless it can deal thoroughly with the evils we have suffered as well as with the sins we have committed.”1
*Soul Care for Suffering*
Soul care for suffering begins with sustaining. While sustaining Jim, I wanted to help him to know that “ it’s normal to hurt.” Before interjecting God’s story, I embraced Jim’s story. Before insisting that God is good, I agreed with Jim that life is bad—life in our fallen world is out of joint. We can think of this process as climbing in the casket. This rather macabre image shocks us into realizing the nature of sustaining.
When the Apostle Paul wrote to his friends in Corinth, he said he wanted them to know that he was under great pressure far beyond his ability to endure, so that he despaired even of life. Indeed, in his heart he felt the sentence of death (2 Corinthians 1:3-9). Jim, too, felt like he had been handed a death sentence. His soul felt dead, disintegrated, shamed, and crushed. I joined Jim on death row. I climbed in Jim’s casket, entering his despair.
I did not intend to leave Jim there. A casket is an appropriate place to visit, but it’s no place to live. While it’s certainly true that life is bad, it’s eternally certain that God is good. Because God is good, healing says, “It’s possible to hope.” We grieve, but not as those who have no hope. While listening to Jim’s sordid story of suffering, I was also listening to God’s beautiful narrative of healing.
It is not enough that I heard God; Jim needed to hear God. My role was to stretch Jim to God’s perspective. I wanted to encourage him to embrace God even as Paul had. Paul came to realize that God allowed his suffering so that he might not rely on himself, but on God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:9). I not only climbed in the casket with Jim, I also celebrated the resurrection with him. Jim began to find healing when he found God’s healing partnership, perspective, and purposes in his pain.
*Spiritual Direction for Sinning*
While assuring Jim that he was blameless regarding the abuse he suffered, I took him at his word when he shared that he knew he did not maturely love his family. Jim needed to face the sins he had committed, knowing that God is gracious even when we are sinful. As a spiritual director dealing with sin, I needed to discern the root causes of Jim’s failure to love so I could offer loving wisdom that could reconcile and guide Jim.
*Reconciling* Jim included helping him to know that “ it’s horrible to sin, but wonderful to be forgiven.” The Puritans spoke of “loading the conscience with guilt” and “lightening the conscience with grace.” We loaded Jim’s conscience with biblical conviction about the damage that his sin was having upon God’s reputation, Jim’s family, and Jim’s soul. Coming to see the depth of his sin and taking personal responsibility, Jim deeply repented of his failure to love.
While exposing his sin, we also exposed God’s grace. We dialogued about God as Jim’s forgiving Father. We pictured the Father running to Jim, throwing his arms around him, kissing him impetuously, and throwing a wild party because His son had returned home.
Some soul physicians are content to stop at this point, believing that the work of repentance and forgiveness completes the spiritual direction process. But Jim still had to walk into his home, face his past failures, tackle his fears, and offer his family courageous love. My guiding task was to empower Jim to experience the truth of who he was to and in Christ so he could realize that “ it’s supernatural to mature.”
We talked about what love would look like in his home, about what risks Jim would need to take, and about how he could continue to find strength in Christ. Over time, Jim began to exercise power, love, and wisdom as a husband and father. He was not too damaged to love.
In Jim’s weakness, Christ showed His strength. In Jim’s suffering and sin, Christ demonstrated His allsufficiency.
_Robert W. Kellemen, Ph.D., LCPC, is Chairman of the Master of Arts in Christian Counseling and Discipleship Department at Capital Bible Seminary, Founder of RPM Ministries, and author of Soul Physicians and Spiritual Friends. He has pastored three churches and serves as the Director of AACC’s Religious Leaders Division and Co-Director of AACC’s Biblical Counseling and Spiritual Formation Institute._
*Endnote*
1 Frank Lake. Clinical Theology. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1966, p. 21.