Biblical Counseling for Today by Jeffrey Watson

Author:Jeffrey Watson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Helping People Choose Their Goals

T HERE HE LAY: unconscious, silent, in a pool of his own blood, a baker’s son on a mission for a grateful nation. The grenade had touched off a blistering village fight as the Blue Devils strained to push the Nazis out of the boot of Italy.

Missing in action and presumed dead, Watson lay crumpled on the dark cellar floor until the Brits discovered him. Far from a hospital, the two English infantry stitched his bleeding scalp together with a sewing needle and fiber from a rope. Hauling him to their camp, they wondered if their ally would live or die.

Days later the GI awoke from his coma. Wincing, he cautioned his hand along his swollen scalp.

“You’re a lucky bloke. Thought you were dead when we found you. Your unit’s moved off to the north.”

As the boys from both sides of the ocean shared rations, one told the story of the fight, the others about the mopping-up operation. Like many who come for counseling, this twenty-three-year-old from the U.S. Fifth Army had a story to tell: He had nearly given his last full measure of devotion for a democratic ideal. Like many who offer counseling, the British soldiers who found him had no magic formula to specify what they or the American should do next.

Should the wounded private make a career of wearing the purple heart, lauding or lamenting his past? Should his newfound friends send him to the rear to look for a real doctor? Should he sit still, hoping some officers would find him and tell him what to do next?

As a matter of record, the GI stood up in his boots. Trying to blink away the dizzying migraine, the homesick combat soldier began his long trek toward the ever-rolling front lines. His mission? Do what the commander in chief would want. Act in concert with President Roosevelt’s goals. Point northward, one boot in front of the other as if General Mark Clark were literally at his side.

Like undisciplined soldiers with no chain of command, many counselees approach counseling today as if it were an Aladdin’s lamp for wishful thinking. Like generals with no battle strategy, many counselors today fail to lead their counselees out of the emotional fog of storytelling into the spiritual sunshine of biblical goal-setting.

CHOOSING JESUS’ GOALS

Even Christians can come to counselors with dreams that scatter in more directions than a bucket of marbles dumped on a tile floor. “To lose twenty pounds; to increase my IQ; to know which model of car I should buy; to see if you’ll agree with me that so-and-so has wronged me,” and others. When confronted by such far-flung hopes, biblical counselors could paraphrase Paul’s words and moan, “We don’t know how to counsel as we ought” (Rom. 8:26). We are not to pray for things outside of God’s will, nor are we to lead people confidently toward things not revealed as God’s will.

Jesus made it clear that He wanted His followers to love God immensely (Matt.

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