The Counselor's Spiritual Life
I was pretty well equipped to be a pastor. I had courses that taught me the biblical languages so that I could understand the Bible in the languages in which it was written. I had courses in hermeneutics, theology, and preaching to equip me to teach the Bible. I had practical courses in evangelism, pastoral care, and even counseling (though that proved to be unhelpful). There weren’t too many big surprises when I moved into my office.
But there was one surprise. I wasn’t ready to pour myself out in serving others and give myself in teaching. I wasn’t ready for how weary and “empty” I began feeling—pretty quickly. I was shocked at the personal “cost” (in energy and emptiness) that ministry exacted.
If you are a biblical counselor you likely know that feeling. You fall asleep praying and planning for your counselee; you wake up strategizing; you spend hours reading, studying, and preparing for sessions; you spend more hours reflecting on completed sessions and seeking counsel from others about your case; and you are heavily invested in the hour (plus) in which you are engaged with the counselee. And many of you have multiple counseling cases per week.
How do you prepare your own heart to pour out to others? What kinds of things do you do to equip yourself for ministering? How can you make sure that you are well prepared to serve those who have been entrusted by the Lord to you for their spiritual care (and I’m talking about heart preparation, not book preparation)?
To answer those questions, let’s first consider a passage that you (should) know well and then move from that to other more specific principles for counselors.
One Passage to Guide the Spiritual Life of All Biblical Counselors (Romans 15:14)
Having spent almost four chapters unfolding the responsibilities of the Roman church in caring for one another (Romans 12-15), Paul ends his exhortation by telling them that they already are equipped to care for each other and have demonstrated that ability (Romans 15:14). In his encouragement, he identifies three areas in which they have demonstrated ability.
First, they are “full of goodness.” He does not mean that they possess the imputed righteousness and goodness of Christ (though they do have that imputed position); he means that their lives give evidence of moral goodness and righteousness. They are obedient to Christ and know, love, and do good things because of that love.
Further, they are “filled with all knowledge.” They have a mature understanding of biblical faith and truth. They are not like other Christians who should have been mature but were not (Hebrews 5:12-13). These believers were like the Bereans (Acts 17:10-11) who studied and knew the truth.
Finally, they were “able also to admonish one another.” They had competency in directing, caring for, guiding, and exhorting each other with the Scriptures. They were mutually (“one another”) caring for each other by administering biblical counsel and instruction.
Those three phrases provide a framework for a philosophy of biblical counseling, which Jay Adams articulated so well a generation ago in his landmark work, Competent to Counsel. Those phrases also inform the counselor what his personal life and character should be like:
The counselor’s ministry should overflow from his spiritual growth and maturity.
The counselor’s guidance should derive from his knowledge of the Scriptures.
Before he counsels, the counselor should be filled with knowledge of the Scriptures and filled (empowered) by the Holy Spirit. Are there things that the counselor can do to help himself cultivate effectiveness in living and with the Word so that his ministry is mature? The Scriptures provide many exhortations that are helpful to the counselor. Consider just a few.
Discipline Yourself Spiritually (1 Timothy 4:16)
Paul exhorts the young pastor of the Ephesian church, Timothy, to “pay close attention to yourself and your teaching” (1 Timothy 4:16). That is profitable instruction for every leader in any biblical ministry. He is exhorting Timothy’s theology to be biblically healthy and for his life to conform to the teaching of Scripture—his teaching is marked by orthodoxy and his life is marked by orthopraxy. It is a reminder that for a leader to be successful it is not enough to do right but believe unbiblical theology or to have a biblical theology but live unbiblically. Both our thinking and our actions should conform to Christ.
To that end a counselor does well to ask himself at least three questions:
What is the character of my life (actions)? “Is my life above reproach (1 Timothy 3:2)? Am I both teaching and demonstrating how to live?”
What consumes my mind (thoughts)? Our actions and teaching are reflections of our minds (Luke 6:45). We do and say what we think. So what do our lives reflect about what is going on in our minds?
What is the condition of my heart (desires)? Everything we do is motivated by our desires. “What do my actions and my teaching reveal about what I want?” We need to ask that question because James 4:1ff is not just a passage to exhort our counselees; it is a passage to examine our own hearts and motives.
Feed Your Heart on Scripture and Prayer
Because we must discipline ourselves spiritually, the most essential components of that discipline are feeding ourselves with the Word and delighting in the fellowship of prayer. The Word and prayer were foundational tasks of the apostles in the early church (Acts 6:4), and they are also foundational disciplines for every godly believer. It is impossible to conceive of a spiritually mature believer who ignores the Bible and prayer.
These two are also essential for the counselor because the Bible is not only what we counsel but is what counsels and directs our own hearts, and prayer demonstrates our inadequacy and our dependence on God to accomplish our ministry tasks.
So we might ask ourselves, “What is my pattern of Bible intake?” (Reading, meditation, memory, and study; cf. 1 Timothy 4:6-7, 9.) And, “What is my pattern of prayerful fellowship with God? Do the frequency, length, and depth of my prayers reveal my overt dependence on Him?”
Do What You Are Learning in Scripture (Ezra 7:10)
It is easier to tell others what to do than to do what we personally need to do. So before you minister the Word to others, let it minister to you. Ezra set the pattern for us. Notice that there was a distinct order to Ezra’s practice—he studied (to know), he practiced (to do), he taught (to share/multiply). He did not teach until he had learned what the Scripture said and learned how to work out what the Scripture said in his life.
There is a biblical term for those who do not do what they exhort others to do: Pharisees, whose job title became synonymous with their sin (hypocrisy). We don’t want our ministry to become synonymous with hypocrisy (or any other sin). So as we take in the Scriptures, we should be in the process of regularly (habitually) letting it evaluate our own hearts for the purpose of transformation. Some questions we might ask to that end are:
Where am I weak? What needs to change in my life?
What am I doing to change?
Am I reading and studying Scripture and theology to minister to my own heart?
Have I fallen into the trap of only studying to help others? Have I failed to practice what I am learning before I teach it to others?
Engage in Corporate Worship and Biblical Fellowship
Hebrews 10:24-25 is applicable for counselors as well as counselees. We need corporate worship as a testimony to others that they are not alone in following Christ. We need corporate worship as a part of the corporate expression of delight in God. We need corporate worship to be reminded of the truth of the Word and to experience the encouragement, exhortation, and guidance that comes from others administering the Word to us.
While we are counselors, we also need the ministry of the Word of God to our own hearts. We are dependent on the regular interaction (fellowship) and unity of the body (cf. Hebrews 13:16; Philemon 6, 17; 2 Corinthians 8-9; Ephesians 4:1ff).
So one of my general practices to demonstrate the priority of worship and fellowship is that if a counselor isn’t available to worship then he also isn’t available to counsel. Good counsel comes from a heart that is invigorated by godly corporate worship.
Practice Relational Reconciliation
Jesus reveals the priority of relational restoration in Matthew 5:23-25. We can’t worship in a God-honoring way when we are sinning against others with broken fellowship. We can’t assert in worship that we are in fellowship with God if we are willfully not in fellowship with some of God’s people.
We understand that sometimes God-honoring efforts at reconciliation have been attempted repeatedly and that some might refuse to be reconciled (Romans 12:18). But we do need to ask if those efforts have been genuinely made. So again, some questions we might ask are:
Am I regularly practicing the biblical patterns of repentance and forgiveness (2 Corinthians 7:11; Luke 17:3)? (Lack of repentance, lack of forgiveness, and bitterness will not only destroy relationships but will inhibit my ability to perceive and counsel my counselee’s problems.)
Do I have any relationships that are unreconciled because of my sin?
Do I have any unreconciled relationships that I have something remaining to do to reconcile? (Do I have a clear conscience about my efforts to reconcile?)
Train Your Body (1 Timothy 4:3-5, 8)
We don’t have to be ascetics with our food. Food is a gift from God to be enjoyed with gratitude (and self-control). But food can also become an idol and control us (and demonstrate our lack of self-discipline). Does my regular consumption of food demonstrate that I am eating with grateful self-control and not with gorging self-indulgence?
Similarly, while bodily discipline does not have ultimate (eternal) benefit, Paul does say that it has some benefit. We cannot extend our lives by diet and exercise, but we can act sinfully in the treatment of our bodies and shorten our days and make our days less effective. So we might ask:
Am I exercising in a way that strengthens my body and maintains my health?
Am I getting the sleep I need nightly so I am well prepared to serve people the next day?
Am I taking care of known physical weaknesses so that my ability to serve in the body of Christ is enhanced? (Understanding that there are times that physical ills preclude serving.)
Find Someone to Follow
Following the example of Paul, we should be worthy leaders of others (1 Corinthians 11:1), but we should also be faithful followers of God’s godly leaders (1 Thessalonians 1:6). Understanding that we are fallible created beings, even while we care for others in their needs, we also need people ministering to us. To that end, we might ask:
Who is influencing me? Who are the people who are pouring into me?
Do I have someone who can encourage, exhort, and confront me?
Do I have someone who is a “step ahead” in life to encourage me? (You may be getting to the age where there are fewer of those; if so, who are the dead people who can minister to you through their writings and who are the geographically “distant” people who can do that through their teaching ministries?)
While the counselor is used by God to shape and direct the lives of others, he must also be attentive to his own life (both the inward and outward parts of his life). That attention will largely be accomplished through the ordinary means of grace, the spiritual disciplines. As the authors of The Gospel for Disordered Lives have written, “In biblical counseling, the counselor must cultivate their own relationship with the Lord through prayer, study of Scripture, and regularly reminding themselves of his truth.”