18 Nov
This is a picture I shot during my class the other night. This man is one of the most brilliant minds in Biblical Counseling, and this picture sort of captures the way his amazing mind works. For all you CCEF or Redmption Hill folks, you can sort of make out a sun at the top center (Heat), a dead tree on the right (Thorns), the cross at the bottom, and then a living tree on the left (Fruit). Yes, this is the mind that came up with that model we all learned so well. Enjoy!
11 Nov
We had to do a project where we walked ourselves through a moment of grumbling using the model we had been taught. We had to walk ourselves through these questions and unpack our hearts. Sanctification hurts. I hope this resonates with all of you in some way.
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Analysis
After going through this last week, I knew I had to do this paper on this situation. I was really shocked at how hurt I really was that the Clyde paper I thought so brilliant wasn’t received as such. It really hurt, and I proceeded to gossip about the grader and complain by “confessing” how frustrated I was. And no one called me out on it. I’m too good at sinning. I’ve lived my life manipulating, deceiving, and lying to get people to do what I want, namely, provide me affirmation and security. I’ve only seen this in the past year or so, and this explains so much of my behavior past and present. How much time I seek and spend with girls; why I’ve always tended to spend time with “older people” and adults; why I’m so intent on no one not catching me sinning; why I’m good at seeing my sin, but not good at repenting from it.
In the end, I see that so much of this comes down to where my security and approval lie. Through this project, I saw that even this one instance was that. At first, as I thought through it in the moment, I figured “this grumbling is coming from pride.” Period. That’s it. It was only later I realized that was too easy. I had fallen into the typical “I’m prideful. I need to not be.” And I was done. I was able to see something in this lack of depth, though. I have been noticing that recently I have been less inclined to confess my sins to God out of embarrassment. That made no sense to me for while until I realized it was sort of a good sign. Previously, I felt free to confess to God, but not out of security and comfort and grace. It was because he wasn’t here. I couldn’t see Him. He was distant; so in the same way it’s easier to write a letter and tell a friend something hurtful than tell them face to face, so it was with God. This embarrassment was actually a sign that the recent stressors of school had brought me into so much dependence on Christ I was actually feeling shame for my sin. I saw this play out this past week for this paper for the worse.
I kept putting this off, and it wasn’t just from lack of time. No; it was my knowledge that it would hurt to go deep. I would see stuff in my heart that I didn’t want to see. And now that I’ve sat down to do this it has hurt, but it’s so good. God has to do surgery on us to take all that’s bad out. It was only today as I wrote this that I realized my false confession and false repentance to my friends last week. It was only last night as I thought through this I realized this was a security issue.
God showed me once more that so much of my affirmation for what I desire to do with my life was wrapped up in that Clyde paper. I’ve thought that “if only Powlison could see or hear of my work, then he would know the gifts I have, and then I can be distinguished and then all my striving could mean something. I would be approved.” But no. God loves me too much to let that work. It would be His wrath to have let that affirmation come in the way I was hoping. It would be His judgment as He gave me over to the desires of my heart. But no, he shatters my delusions of grandeur to make me cling to Him, and that is where this project was most helpful.
I’m really good at questions 1-4. Even with only a little thought, I’ve wrestled through these ideas long enough to know what I most struggle with and can lay those out. But it’s 5-8 that terrifies me. I’m really good at putting myself in the pit of despair and condemnation, but it’s only so I can come up with terms to get myself out. If I can get myself out, then I can get some of the credit for it. If I can just change myself, then I can stand before God at the end of time and receive some glory for all I had done to bring me there. “If I can be a good counselor, approved by Professor Powlison, then I could rest,” I think to myself, but I know it’s a lie. As soon as that happen, the bar raises higher that I must strive to reach and attain. I don’t understand repentance very well because I don’t know it apart from just more striving. “Doing better next time” or “never doing it again.” But that doesn’t work with grumbling. It’s not an action as much as it is a state of the heart (as all sins ultimately are, but you know what I mean). It’s a sin that you literally cannot will yourself not to do. It forces you into the place it forced me. To be needy. To cry out to God and seek Him.
That’s why my answer to number Question 5 is so brief. I can unpack all of the “right” theological answers to that question that I can come up with in my mind, but this time I was forced just to pray, and ask God for once, “What right now, subjectively, in this moment do I need You to be? How do You desire to reveal yourself in this moment?” And right then He answered my cry. The thought came to my mind: “I am your crown.” That was it. And that was all I needed. I then found a verse I’d never read before that said that. It’s Isaiah 28:5 which says “In that day the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his people” (ESV). The passage talks about how the evil man tries to create his own crown through his striving, but to the Lord’s people, the Lord Himself will be their crown.
This project let me see my need once more. It showed me in a deeper way than I had previously ever known that at the end of the day He is my reward, and He gives Himself freely and Sovereignly. He is truly what all my strivings seek to find falsely. I seek a crown with all my might and try to get that through self-aggrandizing motives underlying Counseling papers, through false confession and bitter resentment, and through strivings of my own flesh. But He is the crown I already securely have, and therefore seek all the more. There is a freedom to obey that lies in the accomplishment of Christ’s work on my behalf. Seeing that my crown is eternal, strong, and unfading, I don’t need to earn it. And it’s in that rest that I have it, and it’s in my strivings that I lose it (experientially, not eternally). True Christian liberty is that freedom to obey that comes from this notion that this project reminded me of. Christ is my crown. I can now strive to enter into the rest of that. So my response for this situation must be one of receptiveness and need by praying, confessing, and crying out to my Father to change me in the ways I cannot change myself.
My conclusion:
I grumble when something challenges what my security is in; and nothing can challenge Him, the One I have as my Security, Righteousness, Approval, Glory, and Crown. Selah.
29 Sep
This was my first real assignment in my counseling class. We were given a case study of a real guy code-named “Clyde” and then were simply asked “what’s his problem?” “what would you tell him to do?” I’m just posting this real quick so I can’t remember if there’s anything more a reader would need to know before reading this, but I’ll check later. We only had a page, so this is much shorter than I normally would have written. Enjoy!
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My heart is broken right now. Really, I’m in the middle of the library on the verge of tears. His “problem”: He has set up the “could be”s (future possibilities) and the “I wish they were”s (past failures/unrealized hopes) as the idols/saviors/objects of his hope and ultimate acceptance by God.
This is how I would perhaps walk him through it: We are all made to find mediators between life as we know it and life as we want it. There is perhaps no greater despair found than in one whose functional mediators have been removed from them. Or perhaps, more precisely, one who is in the middle of that process, with no equally authoritative new possibility on the horizon. This is where Clyde is. If even one aspect of his life started to “right itself,” all his energies, affections, and devotions would surely be set upon this thing, to the destruction of the rest. It is the mercy of God that this does not happen. It is His love. His Grace. His personal drawing near to Clyde to show him that which his hope is in. As Clyde’s “saviors” (as they are) become further and further from being realized, so does he feel isolated from his True Savior. Humans instinctively know that without these mediators, life is purposeless, hope is gone, possibilities are never realized. This is why for life to truly be lived in freedom, joy, and peace; there must be a Mediator between ourselves and all we really need.
My “counsel” would take time and would require a theological base (theory) with practical outworkings thereof (action). Theory: I would need more time with Clyde to work through what each “mediator” (or thing being challenged in his life) is trying to achieve for him. What destination he want them to take him. Then I would start showing how each of those “destinations” are actually shadows of greater needs and desires in Him that are directly addressed by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. In short, how the Gospel is his true, ultimate, and final need and mediator. Action: My practical goal would be to implement healthy discipline in his heart. Things like scheduled open time with his wife and kids, both together and individually. Getting involved in some sort of ministry or small group to give him time around the people of God. The first human relationships that need to be resolved are with his bride and His Bride.
