A Reluctant Counsellor

I dare say that anyone who has been a counsellor any length of time has not only done perhaps a power of good they have also done some harm.  

Yet, as displayed right in front of me every time I sit in my study, the Greek sentence, ektelo me blape (do no harm) reminds me of any good helper’s mandate.  

But having been a counsellor to over 50 couples, about 30 pre-marrieds, and lots of individuals, there have been a few times I learned later that I did harm.  I will face God on it one day.  None of these harms have been done with intent.  I think those I inadvertently harmed I’ve had the opportunity to reconcile with and to practice where appropriate the making of amends — committed as I am to the Twelve Steps.  

These days I’m a reluctant counsellor who goes out of my way to avoid counselling unless it’s in a church situation where as a pastor I’m asked to journey with someone to give pastoral counselling.  

It weighs on me that burden that I have placed on some others.  It would be very easy for me to say to God, “I disqualify myself.”  I’m aware that there are many times when I’ve been a blessing to people, but that’s how it’s meant to be; to do harm, for a person to feel harmed, is in my view reprehensible.  

I’ve been on the receiving end of poor therapy practice on at least one occasion.  Two issues that cropped up in that, the lack of skill of the person helping and a conflict of interest in the room.  On the whole I’ve used this experience to endeavour never to do that to anyone… but that is only one set of errors, I’ve made others.  

I’m fortunate these days to practice chaplaincy which is both therapeutic and by and large safe.  It involves my counselling skill set, but because it’s more slanted to a ministry of presence — I actually intentionally say much less — it’s safer and if anything I believe it has more efficacy.  I cannot commit to ongoing intensive pastoral care.  Thankfully most chaplaincy is not both ongoing and intensive.  

I’ll never regret the experiences I’ve had as a counsellor — many of which were both challenging and enlightening personally — and I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m thankful that I consider myself more a pastor and chaplain these days.  

The Heart of True Change

Only those serious about sustained change will prosper in reading this article.  It has nothing for anyone else.  Trouble is, we all reckon we’re serious about change — until the action starts.  

The heart of true change always comes from the heart, the right insight and motivation.  And true change is only possible when we admit we’re going wrong.  

Admitting we’re going wrong in any detail of our lives demonstrates an attitude of humility, but attitudes are useless — mere and genuine frustrations — without true commitment to action.  Motivation that fuels change occurs when we’re finally sick and tired about being sick and tired (living in a lie).  

Recently, I noticed a better chance of success for myself in an area I’d struggled with for many years.  I think my rates of success with change are about one-in-twenty.  Once in twenty times I get it right because the rest of the time I only have an attitude of humility about where I’m going wrong — my heart isn’t humble.  The problem is true motivation — which is always about the true heart behind change.  

When we don’t truly believe we are going wrong, we aren’t truly motivated to change.  We may think we believe we’re going wrong but we don’t truly believe it because the heart of change always links belief with action.  

Belief grounded in action is faith.  

Motivation underpins faith to act right based on true hope.  

The reason I think most if not all of us struggle with change is converting that attitude to action — being true of heart.  Another way of thinking about it is this: 

Action requires a heart committed
for behaving differently
over a sustained period of time.  

Christians have a definite advantage when it comes to increased chances that true change will stick.  They are at least in theory more prepared to admit the true issue is a matter of the right (or wrong) heart.  

The heart of true change is about
change toward a true heart.  

If a person wants to be a better person, they cannot get better unless they face what is wrong with their heart.  If we are ambitious, selfish, greedy, unkind, lazy, lustful, etc, it always starts with the heart.  

There’s nothing wrong with admitting wrongness of heart.  Perhaps it’s the only right thing we can do.  The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah (17:9) stated this truth powerfully if only we’d accept it, and change:  

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?”   The next verse answers the question… only God can understand it.  Verse 10 says, “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”  

Our conduct, sustained over a greater portion of time, which reflects our true heart, is what God judges, and this is evident in the way life works, more or less.  Our true heart is judged.  Not what we pretend to think, say, or do — as if we could fool God.  

If our heart covets nothing but doing the right thing, all ways, we will be rewarded — if not in this life, in the next.  That is always the test of a true heart.  

A true heart never seeks reward. 
Ironically, that’s the only heart God can reward.  

“Can I accept that I may not get my reward until I see God in eternity?”  

If only we can reconcile this, our motivation will always be right, because revelation has convicted us at the level of our insight.  

We must truly be prepared, as Jim Eliot said, to lose everything we cannot keep to gain what we cannot lose — and that right there is the abundant spiritual life Jesus promised to every believer.  But we must be prepared to lose our life to gain it.  

It all starts in the heart.  If we had hearts that always saw right and were always committed to doing right, we would always do right with the same attitude.  But we don’t.  This is a liberating truth two ways.  First, there’s no need to feel ashamed or annoyed; we all struggle with the same thing — if we can admit it.  Second, the key to change stands right there before us.  

We can repent of the corruptness of heart,
and move in a life-giving direction of change.  

Evidence that we have moved is blessing not so much in our own lives, but more through us into others’ lives.  Being genuinely other-oriented is evidence of the right heart.  We can seek such a heart but only God can change hearts.  True change, therefore, is a matter of prayer with the right heart.  

The wisdom of spiritual possession

I’ve been experiencing a period of exhaustion for some time, but it’s not a problematic exhaustion.  It is an exhaustion most welcome.  I’m feeling a real aversion to possessing things and of being possessed.  

More than ever
I’m holding lighter than ever
those things at present in my grasp.  

In this life, via the wisdom of Job,
“the Lord gives and the Lord takes away.”  

What cannot be taken away from us is
the true possession of an eternal spirituality.  

None of what I have in this world can I keep.  Possessing things is a paradox, because though we have them now, they’re never truly ours.  

Possession is an illusion,
unless it is a viable spirituality.  

Relationships on the other hand are eternal.  How I treat people is of utmost significance.  If nothing else, grace.  When I am impatient or make a mistake, I must apologise.  All this, especially with strangers.  

I want to see more, see more truth, and I can only see more if I slow down.  In appreciating more of life, I am seeing more, and this is spiritually fulfilling.  

I’m learning to let go.  I’m giving up.  I’m giving in.  I’m letting people have their way.  I’m leaving God to work things out.  I’m experiencing antipathy for wrestling.  And I’m finding I’m freer to act when I need to.  

Learning to give up, I feel, is an important wisdom; a crucial life skill when we can be more (i.e., less is more) for others, for all others.  Giving up, I get out of the way, I cause less harm, preferring a life that adds greater value over the longer term.  Readier to die today than ever, juxtaposed with wanting to live as long as I can, I’m preparing myself for when my feet will no longer walk this earth.  

Wisdom offers eternity’s reflection on how to relinquish possession.  These are just a few ways we can let go.  I’m giving up:  

1. Seeking other people’s approval.  

2. Pursuing and insisting upon personal perfection.  

3. Trying to control others.  

4. Competing.  

5. Lusting and coveting.  

6. Chasing or building in vain (for vanity).

7. Hoping to influence situations I cannot change.  

8. Running away to, or abiding in, false gods.  

9. Denying truths I must face to grow.  

10. Allowing frustration to have its way with me.  

11. Self absorption.  

12. Trappings.  

13. Preferring the temporal (missing the eternal).

Where I sit to complete this article, a gentle breeze wafts, sitting with family, deep is the knowledge, these are the precious things.  

New Year draws close, let’s seek wisdom for better living.  

Wisdom counsels us to possess the spiritual and let go of the material.  

Everyday and Entrenched Grieving

As a peacemaking mediator I come across everyday and entrenched conflict very often.  Daily, weekly, monthly in ministry, and certainly my own life is no exception, there are touch points of both more regularly than I find comfortable.  

Yet, within conflict there are always opportunities, if we’re looking up, committed to being kind and serving others, and looking to grow.  

Just like there is everyday conflict
and entrenched conflict
there is everyday and entrenched grief.  

And we all get a taste of both.  

Just like we endure entrenched grieving — where we’re held in an extended season of grief — or that there are circumstances we cannot transcend in this life — and where there are many layers to the pain — there is also the phenomenon of various forms of everyday grieving in the journey of emotional and spiritual health.  

Every day is different.  Our emotions and thoughts are different each day.  Some days we’re more honest with ourselves than we are on other days.  For inexplicable reasons we are anxious or joyful or accepting or depressed.  Life doesn’t always seem clear to us.  And yet some days we have perfect clarity.  

There are a variety of ways we enter everyday grieving, which is just a momentary taste and lighter dose of the denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance of entrenched grieving where we feel storm-tossed for indeterminate time periods.  

On different days we endure grieving for others, we feel their pain, and vicariously suffer for them and with them.  When it’s not our pain it’s hard to suffer like they suffer but perhaps it’s a child or grandchild, other relative or good friend.  Our anguish is we cannot alleviate their pain.  

In our own lives, there are daily disappointments, surprises and triggers, unexpected bumps along/within a profusion of transitions, struggles with inexplicable depressions and anxieties, the outworking of broken dreams.  

Transitions alone are the cause of much everyday grief that threatens to plunge us into entrenched grief, and this is because transitions take six months or two years (and longer) to complete.  

Grief itself is the adjustment to a life we
would not have chosen but are invited to accept.  

Surprises and triggers can be frustrating, and we may be fatigued simply by the frustration of, “Why do I let this circumstance/situation affect me so much/easily?”  

Broken dreams and regrets are inevitable in any long life, and the effect of regret rises and falls depending on the day and how ‘strong’ we feel — and how much life reminds of us.  

Everyday grief may not be anything like entrenched grief, but it is part of most days of life.  

Most days we find ourselves challenged
to accept something we cannot change.  

This is our reminder to go gently
in the course of one’s everyday grief.  

Grief is normal to life, and wisdom directs us to ride the waves of life with as much serenity as we can authentically experience, again through acceptance, and plain gratitude for the simplest things in life.  

When and How to Hold On and Let Go

I’ve been getting ‘downloads’ from God (His revelation) for over 20 years now, and I was reminded of this truth recently.  I’ve written on it at least once as it happens (see this one I wrote in 2016).  

This is the central premise: 

Life challenges us mostly in
knowing when and how to hold on
and when and how to let go.  

We need to know when and how to hold on.  And both these questions are pertinent: when or when not to hold on; when to hold on or let go.  And once we’ve discerned whether we need to hold on or let go (one way or the other) then the ‘how’ question becomes the key.  

There are two types of wisdom in range: 1) discerning one way or the other, and possibly harder, 2) how to navigate the journey of either holding on or letting go.  And there are many times when it’s a combination of holding on and letting go.  Discerning when each is required, the right way of doing it, the right heart attitude helping us.  

We need to hold on when giving up would imperil or sabotage our long-held efforts — maintaining a steady gait over the long arc of obedience.  

Just like it is crucial to hold onto the handle bars of a bicycle when we’re negotiating an undulating grade, we must hold on when life is perilous.  

We need to hold on or let go when tempted by selfishness or laziness.  

We need to hold on and continue going when, though it is painful, life is hard.  

There is a lot of trust in holding on when we would rather let go, give up, start over.  But when starting over would leave only regret later, we’re guided wisely to hold on through the hardship.  

Just the same, it’s too easy to hold on when we should let go.  

When bitterness and resentment drives us, especially in addiction, we are blessed when we let go.  It can seem the hardest thing when we’re constantly reminded and angered by certain things that have gone wrong for us, or where we felt we were wronged.  But bitterness and resentment holds on keys, and both are a tricky labyrinth infuriating us more and more.  

Better is the wisdom to do
what must be done to keep ourselves healthy.  

Letting go is genius in a world full of goads.  

We only need to get behind the steering wheel and we find we’re quickly in some sort of conflict — none of it may come from us, but it still comes at us.  How is it that ‘performance’ is most tested on the road?  Or elevators.  Or when shopping.  Being in public pits us against many who are not the slightest bit committed to growth.  And without the wisdom that says, “I’m going to let it go!” we end up drawn into regrettable moments in an instant.  

Letting go is dreaming into the curious world of possibility if only we can forgive the things we cannot change.  

Vexations of soul cannot be contended with. 
Best we leave them in their fury.  

Adulthood is the invitation to learn the wisdom of letting go.  

Patience is wisdom for both holding on and letting go — both in deciding, executing, and staying the journey.  So is humility.  These two lead to gentleness and kindness, if only we’re happy — heart blessed — to be patient and humble.