journey, not a destination.

I have a tendency to build expectations of what life should look like.
I have a tendency towards discontentment when my life falls short of those expectations.

"I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me."

When did I start becoming obsessed with what I want in life, and stop becoming concerned with bringing God the glory in anything and everything that I do, no matter if I am achieving what I think it is He wants me to be achieving? Because when I am striving to obey God and allow him to have way with my thoughts and actions, that is where true contentment lies.

I think this is a real issue in our culture, and it bleeds into our Christian culture as well. From a young age we are encouraged to seek out our individual identity, independence, passions, gain a vision, and then we are encouraged to go forth and achieve. That we chose the path to take in life. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with these ideas, but without Truth at the center of them, these ideas have bred a generation of people who are self-centered and want to do what they want to do. And a generation of Christians who are chasing after an ideal, and labeling it "God's will".

But what happens when we are in a place in life where we feel like we aren't living our passion? What happens when no matter how much we strive for insight, we never feel like we have received a "vision" from God?

I think that a lot of times, I question if I am in the will of God. If I am living in the right place, studying the right thing, or have the right job. I question if I am "called to ministry". I question if a guy I'm dating is God's will for me, or if my plans for next semester are God's will for me. I question if I am living my calling. If I feel like I'm not living in the place that I am called to live, I feel discontent, restless, and less than.

But God's will is not a goal to be achieved. It is not a mysterious entity, floating about in space, waiting for us to find it.

I don't know where this obsession about the details of my life began, but I think that it has something to do with the idea of God's will being something external to me. I've heard it preached so many times that I should have a vision from God... that I have a calling from Him to fulfill an ultimate purpose and I should figure out what that is. I think that is true in a sense... but that it also creates this idea that God's will is a destination to be reached: a beautiful and flawless place where decisions are easy to make and where everything makes sense, where my purpose is known and I feel safe in that... An expectation that has rarely ever been met in my life. But I've been realizing more and more that God's will for me is a journey: a flawed path that can be confusing, where I am called to live in obedience and selflessness and complete surrender to God day by day. Where I forget the ridiculous expectations for achievement that I set for myself, forget what is unknown or unsure about the future. Where I die to myself and live how I know God would want me to live in the place where I am at today, even if it is difficult.

What if God's will is not external to me, but is an actual part of me when I am living in connection with God? What if my call is simply this: to obey God in the truths he has laid before me in His Word. To strive to live like Jesus did, and in doing so, am led to where the Father wants me because of my connection with Him. As I've written in a previous blog, when I am connected to the Father, I do his will. What if me writing this right now is God's will for me... That every moment I am living is God's will when I am living it in surrender to Him? What if... Even when my mess up, God still will ultimately complete his purposes through me because I love Him and deep down desire what He desires?

When we understand that God's will is the journey that we are living and not a destination, we can truthfully rest in God's presence. We can rest knowing that God is in control of our lives, and that we can live life free from the bondage of indecisiveness, uneasiness, and discontentment with present circumstances.

hope in an existential world.

“The life of each human being is a finite drama enacted in a hostile or indifferent universe... and no matter how close a person may feel toward another, each ultimately must face life alone.” - Randall (2001) speaking about existential philosophy.

“You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abided work of God, for: All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” - 1 Peter 1:22-25

Sometimes I feel lonely and broken. Sometimes I feel like no matter how hard I try to connect with others, I am still alone. Sometimes, I want to be known completely and wanted for who I am. Sometimes I feel like that is not possible in the cruel world that I live in.

Maybe I sometimes feel this way, because there is truth to it.

Existentialism is a philosophy that views the world as a broken, desolate, and dangerous place, that mankind is destined for death, and that the individual must search for his or her own meaning and placement in the world. Man is “always and ultimately alone”. Man must come to awareness about aloneness and death, come to accept death, and chose what to do with life on earth. Existentialism emphasizes that “to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering” (Frankl, 1984).

Maybe existential thought has merit; maybe we feel that the world is broken and that we are alone because the world is broken and because we are alone. Maybe we feel this way because of someone else’s mistake: the sin of two people thousands of years ago. Because of their mistake, there is death. There is lack of true intimacy with others and with God. Because of their mistake, it is my tendency, my predisposition, to be broken, lonely, and to die. Before the mistake, there was connection: unbroken communion with God and one another. When sin entered the world, there was a great divide. The world is a broken place; I am a broken person, and I am destined for death. Intimacy was broken as well; thus, I am predisposed to desire intimacy with every fiber of my being. I am predisposed to be broken, and also to desire the fullness that was present before the fall.

This is why I feel disconnected. This is why I feel alone. Because I actually am. In many cases, this is why clients who come in for counseling are hurting. Because essentially, mankind desires the previous state of intimacy with God and man that was lost because of the fall.

But, there is hope to find true meaning in life in this broken world.

According to existentialism, it is the responsibility of man to discover meaning in a cruel world. Man has free choice to decide how to respond to life and death. According to the Word of God, we can chose ultimate meaning and life after death through the power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In accepting salvation, we can mend the great divide of the fall. We can have an intimate relationship with God and with fellow man. Jesus mends our brokenness and reunites us with our Creator. God knows us completely, accepts us, loves us and offers us eternal life after death.
 
So, how can existentialism be helpful to Christian counselors? The goal of existential therapy is to help clients live an “authentic” life, accepting the ultimate concerns of being and the inevitability of our own deaths. The counselor helps the counselee to gain the courage to face isolation and death, and to embrace freedom and meaning. As Christian counselors, we should desire that our clients understand the effects of the fall, and understand that a life without Christ is a life characterized by brokenness, isolation, death, and lack of meaning. We should be able to present the hope of the gospel to clients, and explain that by the power of the cross, man can be intimate with God once again. We don’t have to feel alone and broken anymore, nor do we have to dwell on death; we are offered fullness and intimacy through Christ Jesus and He gives us eternal life.

Christ in the counseling room.

I’d like to use my opportunity to post on the blog to talk about something that was inspired by class yesterday, although it was not exactly a topic discussed. I’d like to bring up how I felt when we were doing role playing. This was my first time actually doing a face to face type of counseling role playing, and the first time I have seen role playing in class. Can I be honest about how I felt as the counselor? Basically: inadequate. I want to bring this up in case anyone else felt inadequate, and I want to give some encouragement.

I frantically thought to myself as my fellow classmate was talking to me, trying to think of how to process and case conceptualize and think of the perfectly appropriate thing to say to make her see the light. How would this or that theorist approach this situation? How do I be culturally appropriate in this situation? What are the ethics of this situation? Should I report what this person is telling me? WWJD? As I’m having a mini crisis, my counselee is waiting for my response, and I still have no idea what the right thing to say is.

I really, truthfully realized yesterday that I am inadequate to always say the right thing in the right situation at the right time. No matter how hard I strive, I can never actually change a person with my words. There isn’t even a “right” thing to say because isn’t that subjective anyways? I try to fit the human experience into a box when it does not fit in a box; I want it to fit so that it will make more sense to me and be more tangible somehow. Instead though, I just have a jumbled brain and nothing of true value to say during role playing.

And I felt the Spirit of the Lord speak to my heart: This is not about you having the right words to say. This is about Me speaking through you, to bring glory unto Myself.

I am just the vessel.

In the book Competent Christian Counseling, Clinton and Ohlschlager have many profound and incredibly helpful things to say about what it means to be a Christian Counselor. One of my absolute favorite points of the book can be summed up in this quote on page 6:

“Myriad promises and elaborate plans exist to help people find nirvana, strike it rich, reach some super consciousness, change the world, or attain true inner peace. Then there is the call of Christ. Jesus’ timeless message still trumpets in its hallowed, outrageous offense: ‘I bid you come and die.’ But in that dying something else is reborn: new life in the present and the seed of eternal life to come... Only Jesus, the God-man, living in us through his Holy Spirit, can make this life happen.”

In this class, and in this book, it seems to me that the overriding point is this: that the heart of life, and the heart of counseling for Christians is the Gospel. Clinton and Ohlschlager time and time again emphasize that it is the love of Jesus Christ that should saturate and permeate every aspect of the ministry of counseling, not be a compartmentalized portion of our own personal lives. They say that the promise of Christian counseling is that the hope and the power of Christ is present; it is God who heals, redeems, save, and renews the lives of clients. What they say in the book is that God actually miraculously intervenes in counseling sessions, and He takes what is dead and broken and gives it new life. When we allow God to be a part of the counseling process and ask Him to speak through us, He actually does.

So, how does this apply to us directly as Christian counselors? I personally need to stop obsessing about over-analyzing every little thing about the subjective things that exist in the counseling profession. Sometimes, it is easier to try to understand the world and people according to theories and concepts than it is to trust that God will equip us to do what He has called us to. I definitely am not saying to be an incompetent counselor and neglect professionalism or not strive to do the best we can do. It is also very important that we know where we stand, and know what we believe about theories, etc. However, the problem is that when it becomes about us trying to be good enough, we are neglecting the Spirit of God trying to work through us. (Plus, we will always fall short, as displayed in my frantic bit of role playing). And when it becomes about us and our personal ability, it ceases to be about Him and his glory.  I think that God wants to be more than a part of what we are doing in counseling; I think that God wants to speak through us and use us in miraculous and incredible ways. So, there's no reason to feel inadequate, because HE is more than adequate.