How do I prepare myself for a ministry of counseling?

Here's a question that's obviously dear to my heart. It's going to sound like a relatively ordinary answer because the ministry of counseling is a vocation for some people, and perhaps that's the import of this question, but it's also something that we all do. And since it's something that we all do, my answer will sound hopefully really good, but also expected and ordinary. How do I prepare myself for a ministry of counseling? Well, here's one. When you're in Scripture, are you responding to it? Are you hearing something that is good? Can you identify later in the day to a friend, here's what I read this morning and listen to this. Are you hearing and responding to Scripture? Let me push this a little bit more. Jeremiah 15:16: the word is a delight. Is the word becoming your delight, or to move into Psalm 119, do you love it? Can you say that you love it? That's one thing that we all want to grow in. Are you responding? Are you loving the word?

A second would be in the church, are you actually engaged or a mere sort of person who appears? Do you want to be there? I’ll put it this way: do you assume responsibility as an active member of the church? I can remember the place where I work, CCEF, I realized that I was an active member of this community when there was some trash in the parking lot and I went out and picked it up and threw it away. A small thing, of course, but this is my home. Not in a possessive way, but I am part of this and so I'm engaged. In your church, are you engaged? Do you want to be there? Do you ask for prayer from people? Are you enjoying the people around you as you know them? Are you remembering things about people as they're sort of etched on your own heart? You remember good things about others, remembering the hard things about others. Simple but important. Are you engaged in a growing way in your church?

Another category: in daily conversations, do you want to grow? What are you learning about God that you're speaking of more and more in your conversations? How are your conversations becoming increasingly skillful where they can move from the mundane weather of the day, the sports teams from yesterday evening, how can it move from what we would call small talk and how can it move to something that is closer to the heart, closer to the things that are important to the other person and engaging the person, those things that are increasingly important. How are you growing in conversations? Maybe the question would be, what is one way that you want to grow in a conversation?

Maybe one other category. As you enter the larger counseling world, you find that it's loaded with interesting and useful ideas in the secular community. How do you engage with those useful ideas? Well, here would be one way, The useful ideas—I hope this is meaningful to you rather than demeaning, because I want to be respectful to those who do careful thought around us—but the careful thought of secular psychotherapy, there's a certain amount of cosmetic surgery to it. Cosmetic surgery can make all kinds of changes, but there is a depth to which it cannot reach. What we have is a depth of understanding purpose, understanding issues of life and death, understanding what is good and best and what is dangerous and deadly. Then you'll be moving into this larger counseling world and you'll find that there are all kinds of voices and thoughtful voices. What you're going to do is you're going to approach them respectfully. They are people who have thought long and hard about what they're doing, but in the midst of that, here's what you're going to be thinking: that in Scripture is more than anyone else could speak about the human condition and helping people apart from Scripture. Scripture is more than. We respect the voices around us, but we recognize that Scripture is more than. We don't always know what the more than is; we need help to understand how Scripture speaks more profoundly than we can imagine. But I was reading Psalm 119 recently, verse 98. There's a section that talks about more than, more than my enemies am I wise because of your teachings. More than my teachers have I grown because I have your Word. More than the aged, those who bring lots of experience to life, do I have understanding, because I have you and your Word. So that's what we're thinking. We bring a certain respect to the observations around us. We recognize that Scripture speaks more. It speaks with the depth and a profoundness, and it enters us into a life that is intensely personal where all things are before God and with the knowledge of him and what we hope is with him and even in him.

Let me say one other thing, and this is relevant to Scripture. I'll share with you a doctrine that has been helpful for me. Bear with me on this. It has been helpful for me as I move into Scripture when Scripture becomes somehow, somehow distant from daily life and heaven seems awfully far away from the challenges of today. It's the doctrine of sin that I find to be helpful, because ultimately what we want to do is we want to understand how this Scripture is the story of the King who came and when he came, he did what was most important. He died in our place as our substitute, forgave our sins so we could be brought to him. So the doctrine that I find to be an important one is when there's less joy in my life or feeling as though Scripture is not as sufficient in some of the details as I would like it to be. Here's the thing that I find most important, that I have sinned against the holy God and I continue to be a sinner, and tomorrow I will be a sinner. My God in Christ has forgiven my sins and has now given me his Spirit in a way that I can do battle with sin. That battle with sin is not merely to do battle with sin. It's doing battle with sin in a way that enhances my relationship with Jesus Christ. So there's nothing that somehow interferes with it.

As you grow in caring for other people, what you want to be certain of in your own heart is that somehow, like the Apostle Paul, all good things and all wisdom, it flows from the person and the work of Jesus Christ as he was our substitute. And to move in to the person of Christ, we recognize that we indeed are needy before him. We need what it is that he gives us, forgiveness of sins.

So there are just a few ideas. Along with that, go to the CCEF website (ccef.org). There are so many articles that have been developed over the decades that reach into all kinds of different problems, so allow the website to be a companion for you. Some of you may go to school because you are thinking that if you could, you would like this to be not only your avocation but your vocation. Either way, whether you are heading for this as a job or you simply want this to reach into everyday life and affect all of your relationships, know this: our caring for others—our counsel we could call it—our caring for others is a calling for us all, and it is privilege and it is a delight.