One of the hard realities about Biblical Counseling is the realization that you cannot change someone. If a drunk is determined to drink, all of the talk in the world isn’t going to change the fact that he is going to go to the bar tonight and get drunk. The good news is that while I cannot change anyone, God can and he seems to use two primary means of doing so. 1) By using a faithful counselor to confront sin and encourage the process of change. 2) By using painful circumstances in life to bring a person to a sense of his need for personal change.
2 Chronicles 33:1-13 is an intriguing account of a king named Manasseh who sinned greatly against God and who God had to chasten in order to bring about repentance.
Verses 1-9 record the atrocities that Manasseh committed:
He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations…he burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger…
Verse 10 records God’s first response to Manasseh’s rebellion, “The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention.” Since Manasseh refused to listen to God’s counsel verse 11 says, “Therefore the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon.” Finally, verse 12 records Manasseh’s repentance, “And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers…and God was moved by his entreaty…and brought him again to Jerusalem…Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.” It took the hooks and chains of Assyria to finally bring Manasseh to his senses and realize that the Lord is God.
The fact of the matter is that God is very jealous for His people and He will use any means necessary to bring his people to the place where they will listen to Him, even if that requires using hooks and chains to get our attention.
July 19 2010 | Devotional | No Comments »
Psalm 139 begins with these words,
O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
These beautiful verses begin what many consider to be one of the most intimate psalms in all of the Bible. As David makes his way through these 24 verses he explains how there is nothing about him that God does not already know. In other words, David stands before God completely exposed, so much so that in verses 15 and 16 he writes,
My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance…
This level of exposure may sound intimidating at first, because it leaves us with no place to hide. David writes, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” Upon further reflection I believe that this exposure is one of the most comforting aspects of our relationship with God. Consider a few of the benefits of standing totally exposed before God.
- Being exposed before God frees me from any pretense. So much of life is spent trying to be someone or something that we’re not. Yet, there is no reason to pretend with God, because He is already fully aware of exactly who we are. In other words, we are free to be ourselves with God.
- Being exposed before God frees me from the fear of man. Because God already knows every single detail of my life, including all of my faults I don’t need to be afraid of what other people find out about me. This isn’t to say that we need to go parading our sin about, but rather that because God already knows all of the details of my life and there is no one I want to please more than Him, I don’t need to be afraid of what men say or think of me.
- Being exposed before God reminds me of my need for the Gospel. The thing which makes my exposure before God bearable is the fact that Christ has cleansed me and clothed me with his righteousness. Ultimately, I have no business standing before God with any confidence whatsoever, yet because of the work of Christ I can come before the throne of grace with confidence because of what Christ has done.
May 24 2010 | Devotional | No Comments »
The other day I got a call from our Real Estate agent with some bad news. Prices in the area are continuing to drop in the worst real-estate market since the 1960’s, so we had to drop the price of our home by another $10,000. This wouldn’t be so bad, if it weren’t for the fact that we had already priced the house $15,000 under what we’d actually paid for it. The good news is that when we bought our home we put a lot of money down, the bad news is that we’re almost certainly going to lose it all…assuming that we can sell the house at all.
I’ve known for quite some time that this is a pretty bad market, so it’s not as though all of this comes as a surprise to me, but somehow that doesn’t make it any easier. Last week, after having our home on the market for over a month without a single person coming to look at it,, I began to get nervous. What if the house doesn’t sell by the time we need to move? Do I rent it out? Where do I find renters? What if the market continues to drop and 2 years from now I’m in a worse position than I am today?
If you’ve ever been in what feels like a desperate situation, you know that questions like these can make you feel as though the walls are closing in around you. You begin to theorize and strategize and to frantically search for any means of escape or redemption.
These feelings aren’t limited to financial situations, they can be equally true of the mother struggling with a disobedient child who only wants him to obey, or of the pastor struggling with a critical church member who only wants to have a church business meeting without any fights, or of the business owner who only wants to see the economy turn around so that he can stay in business. What they all have in common is the passionate desire for some kind of redemption from difficult circumstances.
What I’ve come to realize is that the great danger in these moments
is not that God will not deliver me, but rather that I begin to desire redemption from my circumstances more than I desire the Redeemer. In other words, the danger is an attitude that says, “You can tell me about Jesus having the answer to my problems all day long, but what I really need is…”. The reason that this attitude is so dangerous is that it functionally denies the sufficiency of Christ and replaces my need for Christ with my need for deliverance from a set of circumstances. In the midst of hard things, the only proper response is to trust.
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. (Habakkuk 3:17-19a)
The issue that is at stake when God asks you if you trust Him, is if you desire the Redeemer more than you desire redemption from your circumstances.
April 19 2010 | Devotional | 6 Comments »
There are a number of people in my life right now who are suffering in various ways. Some are suffering from cancer, some are suffering from the loss of a job, and some are suffering from the fear of the unknown.
The other day I was reading through the book of Exodus and I came across a remarkable passage about suffering. The passage is found in Exodus 2:23-25 where Moses writes,
During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel – and God knew.
When God’s children suffered under terrible persecution (even having their children ripped from their arms and thrown into the Nile), God responded in four ways.
- God Heard – In the midst of their suffering God was not absent. His ear was attuned to His people. In the same way, God is never absent in our suffering.
- God Remembered – God did not forget that those going through suffering were his children, He remembered them. In the same way, God does not forget His children today. Isaiah 49:15 says, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” God always remembers and He always shows compassion for His children.
- God Saw – It is not just that God was aware of the suffering of his children, but rather he was intimately acquainted with it. Every lash from the task masters and every bitter tear was cried in His presence and He saw it all. No matter how dark the valley may be, you can rest assured that God sees.
- God Knew – There is great comfort in the fact that God knows our suffering. There is comfort in the fact that God knows our suffering because God is sovereign and good and He is able to minister to us in our afflictions. Not only is God sovereign and good in our suffering, but He is also present. God knows because God does not allow us to walk through suffering alone, but rather he holds our hand and when necessary he carries us.
When we walk through dark valleys in this life, we can be assured that 1) God hears, 2) God remembers, 3) God sees, and 4) God knows.
Psalm 73:23-26 – “Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
March 29 2010 | Devotional | No Comments »
I’ve recently been reading through the book of Numbers during my morning devotions. Numbers is basically all about the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites as they make their way up to the promise land, refuse to enter, and are exiled to wander the desert for 40 years.
The nation of Israel was never a particularly happy group of people during these travels, but their unhappiness appears to ratchet up to a whole new level in chapter 11 of Numbers where we read:
And the people complained in the hearing of the LORD about their misfortunes, and when the LORD heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the LORD burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. – Numbers 11:1
Now, you would think that the Israelites would have learned that God is none to pleased with complacency from this incident alone, but the story goes on in verses 4-6.
Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”
Despite everything that God had done for the nation, including saving them from the Egyptians who were slaughtering their children, parting the red sea, providing food in the midst of the desert, they still grumbled about their circumstances. In verse 20 God summarizes why He is so upset with their complacency. He says, “You have rejected the LORD who is among you and have wept before him, saying, ‘Why did we come out of Egypt.’” God is saying that their complacency was a direct rejection of Him.
This seems like something of an odd statement as the Israelites weren’t really saying anything directly about God. They were complaining about their circumstances. The fact that they didn’t like the food they were being served, etc. At face value, their complaint was not necessarily a theological problem as much as a practical problem, yet God declares their complacency to be an outright rejection of Him.
So, what is going on here? I believe that what the Lord is getting at in this passage is this: When we complain about our circumstances we are implicitly questioning the goodness of God. Because God is absolutely sovereign over all things, when we complain/grumble about the circumstances that God has placed us in we question His goodness in placing us in whatever life-situation we are in. That means that whenever I utter a complaint in private or in public about how hard it is to raise my kids, about how difficult it is to get along with my boss, or how much I wish that my church would do things differently, I am questioning the goodness of God. That certainly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t seek to have a good relationship with our boss, do a good job of parenting our kids, etc. but there’s a vast difference between improving my performance as a parent or an employee and simply grumbling about the things I don’t like in my life.
Habakkuk 3:17-19 provides an excellent example of how we should respond to the difficulties of life. Habbakuk writes, “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the field yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; i will take my joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.”
March 22 2010 | Devotional | 1 Comment »
If you’ve anything like me, you’ve probably experienced argument amnesia before. This is what happens when you get into an argument (often times with your spouse) and after a few minutes, you can’t even remember what you’re fighting about. It almost doesn’t matter what the subject matter is, you somehow continually find yourself back in the same place. In short, you’re stuck in a rut.
One of my favorites lines in Psalm 23 is in verse 3 where David writes, “He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” The Hebrew can also be translated, “He leads me in the ruts of righteousness.” As the Shepherd of Psalm 23 leads the flock from one pasture to the next, he would follow a path that many sheep had trodden before. The result of all this travel was that the path would become well worn and eventually turn into a rut in the ground that the sheep would follow as they were lead by the Good Shepherd. What makes the imagery of Psalm 23 so powerful is that these are the “ruts of righteousness.” As you follow the Good Shepherd, these are the natural paths that you take.
Just as there are “ruts of righteousness”, there are also “ruts of unrighteousness.” A “rut of unrighteousness” is a pattern of sin that is so intuitive that we periodically fall into it without even realizing where we are or how we got there. If you’ve ever said to yourself, “I can’t believe that I did that again!” when you fought with your spouse, or yelled at your children, or said something hurtful to a co-worker, then it may very well be that you’re stuck in a rut of unrighteousness.
The thing about a rut is that you have to be intentional about stepping out of it, otherwise it will lead you to the same place every time. A large part of the process of redemption is stepping out of these “ruts of unrighteousness” and following the Good Shepherd in new paths that may at first seem unnatural, but which eventually lead you to green pastures and quiet waters (Psalm 23:2) where you can find rest.
March 15 2010 | Devotional | No Comments »
I’ve been spending some time in Psalm 23 recently and in my study I ran across the following poem by David Powlison. It’s called the “Antipsalm” because it’s written to be the exact opposite of Psalm 23. Oftentimes in Bible study it helps to see what something is not, in order for you to see what it is.
I’m on my own.
No one looks out for me or protects me.
I experience a continual sense of need. Nothing’s quite right.
I’m always restless. I’m easily frustrated and often disappointed.
It’s a jungle — I feel overwhelmed. It’s a desert — I’m thirsty.
My soul feels broken, twisted, and stuck. I can’t fix myself.
I stumble down some dark paths.
Still, I insist: I want to do what I want, when I want, how I want.
But life’s confusing. Why don’t things ever really work out?
I’m haunted by emptiness and futility — shadows of death.
I fear the big hurt and final loss.
Death is waiting for me at the end of every road,
but I’d rather not think about that.
I spend my life protecting myself. Bad things can happen.
I find no lasting comfort.
I’m alone … facing everything that could hurt me.
Are my friends really friends?
Other people use me for their own ends.
I can’t really trust anyone. No one has my back.
No one is really for me — except me.
And I’m so much all about ME, sometimes it’s sickening.
I belong to no one except myself.
My cup is never quite full enough. I’m left empty.
Disappointment follows me all the days of my life.
Will I just be obliterated into nothingness?
Will I be alone forever, homeless, free-falling into void?
Sartre said, “Hell is other people.”
I have to add, “Hell is also myself.”
It’s a living death,
and then I die.
February 24 2010 | Blog | No Comments »
One of the most common issues that comes up in my counseling office, as well as in my own spiritual life is “the fear of man.” Ed Welch defines the fear of man in simple terms, it is “when people are big and God is small.” Welch writes, “Scripture gives three basic reasons why we fear other people…1) We fear people because they can expose and humiliate us. 2) We fear people because they can reject, ridicule, or despise us. 3) We fear people because they can attack, oppress, or threaten us. These three reasons have one thing in common: they see people as ‘bigger’ (that is, more powerful and significant) than God, and, out of the fear that creates in us, we give other people the power and right to tell us what to feel, think, and do.”
The fear of man can take on many different shapes and sizes. It might look like an unpleasable boss who apparently has the power to bring financial ruin upon you by firing you. For pastors, it often looks like a disgruntled church member who can bring untold chaos to the body by gossiping, calling for special meetings, and writing endless letters. In some extreme cases it may look like an abusive spouse or father who verbally puts you down in order to lift himself up. What all of these circumstances have in common is the fact that the person in question looks very powerful and intimidating. The fear of man is so powerful that it can even take on physical manifestations, especially for those who have dealt with abuse in the past: sweaty palms, heart racing, nervous habits, or even panic attacks can all be the results of the fear of man.
Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” The snare of the fear of man is that it if people are big and powerful in our estimation, God is invariably small. There is only so much room in the human heart and when men become too big, the heart diminishes God and our perception of his ability to save.
Like most people, I’ve struggled with the fear of man since I was a child. In counseling I’ve recently come up with a set of questions to help overcome the fear of man. These certainly aren’t exhaustive, but I’ve found them to be extremely helpful in my own life, as well as the lives of those I work with.
When I am tempted to fear man I want to ask myself 3 questions.
1) Who do I fear right now? This question is intended to be something of a slap in the face, to help me realize what I’m struggling with. The real issue is not that I have a disgruntled church member who may cause great harm to the church; the real issue is that I am being tempted to fear him or her more than I fear God. Psalm 34:7, 9 might be a good verse to meditate on in this regard, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and delivers them…Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack.”
2) How have I sinned? This second question is really designed for me to “get the log out of my own eye” (Matthew 7:3-5). Often times the fear of man can look like a false sense of guilt over something I’m being accused of. This question allows me to step out of the situation I’m in and ask myself in biblical terms if I have sinned. The goal of this question is that I would make that right with the Lord, before I make it right with anyone else (Psalm 51:4).
3) How have I been sinned against? This final question is meant to provide one more level of clarity as I work through the fear of man. If I’ve sinned against someone than I need to go and make it right with them, on the other hand if someone else has sinned against me I need to go and confront them in that. Matthew 18:15 says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault.” The goal of this question isn’t for me to find a weapon to attack with, but rather to help clear the fog of the fear of man from my eyes and to see people accurately through the lens of scripture.
There are certainly other questions that could be asked and would be helpful (i.e. “How can I serve in this situation?” or “What does God expect of me right now?”), but the big idea is to use questions to lift the fog of the fear of man and to see God as He truly is. Isaiah 66:1-2, “Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”
February 21 2010 | Devotional | No Comments »
The last few weeks have been pretty difficult from a parenting standpoint. For some reason my oldest son (Micah) has decided to put his mother and I to the test in almost every conceivable way that he can. Sometimes it’s a fight about whether or not to eat his dinner, sometimes it’s a holy war about taking a bath, and sometimes he just seems to be mad at life in general and mad at us as well.
The other day he decided to take his protest to the streets, specifically the toilet paper aisle of Wal-Mart. As we were walking through the store enjoying our Saturday morning and picking up a few things Micah decided to have a complete melt-down. There we were in the middle of the store while Micah cried, complained, stamped his feet and through himself on the ground. As a parent I had several options open to me at this moment. I could give him a quick swat and tell him to shape up, I could grab him by the ear and march him right out of the store, I could look him dead in the eyes and warn him in the sternest way that he needed to stop it, or any number of other things to correct the behavior.
In this case, I decided to go a different route. As my wife and other son walked away I took Micah by the hands and drew him into my arms and held him there for a long time. Then I quietly said, “Micah, you are so troubled by so many things right now and you are miserable in your sin. But, right here in my arms is where you are going to find happiness. This is where all of your needs are met and where you will find joy, when you are right with me and in my arms.”
I’m convinced that one of God’s primary purposes in parenting is to teach us about ourselves. You see, I am much more like my son than I care to admit. I too rant and rage when I don’t get what I want, I too question my Father’s goodness when I am denied something that I think is important, I too lash out at those I love when they get in the way of my plans, my wants and my desires. All the while my loving Father holds out His arms and says, “Drew, you are so troubled by so many things but you will only be happy when you are right with me and resting in my arms.”
Matthew 11:28-30 – “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
February 15 2010 | Devotional | No Comments »
The other day I took one of my Junior Highers out to get ice cream. We looked intently at all of the flavors, made our choices, and sat down to enjoy ourselves. This was the first time that I’d spent much time with this particular young man so I started asking lots of questions about what he liked to do, where he went to school, what his family was like, etc. What followed was an hour long conversation that broke my heart in almost every way. In the same matter of fact tone that you might tell someone about what you did yesterday he began to relay to me the broken details of his life. Divorce, parental drug abuse, multiple siblings spread all over the state, CPS, and countless other tragedies made up the tapestry of this young man’s life. The only consistent thing seemed to be the complete instability that characterized his day to day experience.
As we finished our ice cream and made our way outside I couldn’t help but think about how broken this young man’s life was, and he’s only 12. Something inside of me wanted to cry out, “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be! Children are meant to live with both of their parents, to be raised to know and fear the Lord, to have security knowing that mom and dad love them and love each other.” The problem is that life is broken and so nothing is the way that it’s supposed to be, including this young man’s life.
Paul Tripp writes about this brokenness in his book, Broken Down House:
“The brokenness around you affects you in different ways at different times. Sometimes you have to deal with personal hurt. Sometimes you grow angry that things do not function as they were designed to. Sometimes you are overwhelmed with feeling sad or lost in the face of this world’s pitiful condition. Sometimes you get tired of the effort it takes to live in a broken-down house, and you just want to quit. At every point and every moment, your life is messier and more complicated than it really ought to be because everything is so much more difficult in such a terribly broken world.”
How do we respond to life in this broken world? Should we close our eyes to the suffering around us and try to insulate ourselves from the brokenness? Should we allow our hearts to become numb or indifferent with apathy? Should we just lay down and cry? Here’s a summary of Tripp’s response:
- Determine to be honest about the world we live in. In other words, don’t try to cover up the brokenness of the world we live in.
- Let yourself mourn. This world is a broken place full of pain and it is appropriate for us to mourn over that.
- Fight to be dissatisfied. Do not allow the day to day drone of this broken world lull you into being satisfied with it’s brokenness.
- Be glad. While this world is broken, Emmanuel has come to restore that which has been lost.
- Live with anticipation. By an extraordinary act of God’s grace, all his blood-bought children are guaranteed to be part of a much better neighborhood. Someday we will all live in the New Jerusalem on a street called Shalom, where brokenness will be no more.
February 08 2010 | Devotional | No Comments »
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