5 Biblical Counseling Sustaining Skills: GRACE, Part 4
Note: I’ve developed the follow post from my book Spiritual Friends. In Part 1 and Part 2, we learn about Grace Connecting. In Part 3, we began to learn about Rich Soul Empathy. In this blog mini-series, we’re learning five biblical counseling skills of sustaining by using the acronym GRACE.
• G—Grace Connecting: Proverbs 27:6
• R—Rich Soul Empathizing: Romans 12:15
• A—Accurate/Active Spiritual Listening: John 2:23-4:43
• C—Caring Spiritual Conversations: Ephesians 4:29
• E—Empathetic Scriptural Explorations: Isaiah 61:1-3
How to Empathize with the Soul: Climbing in the Casket—Hebrews 4:15-16
Soul empathy involves our capacity for “as if” relating. Ambrose wrote:
“Show compassion for those who suffer. Suffer with those who are in trouble as if being in trouble with them.”
Soul empathy requires compassionate imagination. We need to imagine what it is like for our friends to experience their life stories. To understand others with intimate knowledge, we must read into their experiences asking, “What is it like to experience and perceive the world through their stories?”
Hebrews 2:14-18 and 4:15-16 teach that empathy is not less than, but more than, intellectual. It is also experiential. Biblical, Christ-like empathy shares the experiences of another, connecting through common inner experiences. Such soul sharing occurs by way of incarnation—entering another’s world and worldview.
As a spiritual friend, the more human we are, the more real, the more fully alive and passionate, the more we will tune into others. Then we’ll experience a sympathetic resonance no matter the melody, dirge, minor or major key, or discordant note.
The God of All Comfort
Empathy, however, does not come from sharing the same experience, situation, or suffering. No two people experience a situation identically, nor do they share the identical experience.
Empathy comes from sharing the same dependency upon God. The God of all comfort, comforts us in our specific trouble so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the infinite comfort we receive from the God of all comfort.
I derive a core spiritual friendship principle from these concepts:
We will be empathetic with others to the degree that we are facing our struggles face-to-face with God.
When our soul is attuned to others, then we “pick up their radio waves, the vibes of their inner reactions.” Having accomplished this, we need to go the distance. We need to communicate to our spiritual friends in a way that helps them to “have empathy with our empathy.” They need to feel that we feel with them. Otherwise, their sorrow is not shared, it is simply “understood.” When both our “soul radios” are tuned to the same frequency, then we can share our soul friends’ experiences. We share their sorrows by climbing in the casket with them, and they know we are there.
While death is separation; shared sorrow is connection. It is the stitch connecting the wound. It is the healing balm. However, shared sorrow must never be a healing replacement. It must not replace grief. Shared sorrow does not purpose to eliminate sorrow, to rescue, or to cheer up. Shared sorrow purposes to help another to face and embrace sorrow.
“Levels” of Empathy
Effective soul empathy includes several “levels.”
1. Level One Empathy: “How would that affect an image bearer?”
Here we understand our spiritual friend through God’s eyes. A foundational level of empathy, it builds upon a universal biblical understanding of people.
2. Level Two Empathy: “How would that affect an image bearer like me?”
Here we understand our spiritual friend through our eyes. A filtering level, we use our life as a filter through which we relate God’s truth to our friend’s life.
3. Level Three Empathy: “How would that affect an image bearer like him/her?”
Here we understand our spiritual friend through his or her eyes. We move from universal to unique empathy. In this final, deepest level of soul empathy we need to:
a. Adopt Our Spiritual Friend’s Viewpoint:
We replace our internal frame of reference with his. We neither condone nor condemn, agree or disagree, at this point. We simply seek to see what it is like to be him—through his mindset and frame of reference.
b. Express Our Spiritual Friend’s Viewpoint:
We express in our own words what we sense that she has said, felt, and thought about the situation. We then seek clarification.
c. Encourage Our Spiritual Friend to Accept His/Her Viewpoint:
We nudge him to acknowledge his own experience. We help him to verbalize how he sees things and to accept his own perspective.
d. Help Our Spiritual Friend to Evaluate His/Her Viewpoint:
She needs to begin to assess how near or far her viewpoint is from reality.
The Rest of the Story
The relational competencies of Grace Connecting and Rich Soul Empathizing provide the first two sustaining “skills” necessary to help our spiritual friend’s faith survive. Through them, we build a trusting, mutual, caring relationship.
Having done so, what next? In particular, how do we use the Scriptures to skillfully discuss and explore applications specific to our spiritual friend? In our next post we begin to learn how through Accurate and Active Spiritual Listening.
Join the Conversation
Who do you have in your life who empathizes deeply and compassionately with you?
RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
hello there, today’s devo, grace skill part 4, after you do 3 a,b, you wrote:
c. We nudge him to acknowledge his own experience. We help him to verbalize how he sees things and to accept his own perspective.
and
d.She needs to begin to assess how near or far her viewpoint is from reality.
What do you do when the person does not want to acknowledge anything from reality and remain in denial?
how do you deal with that empathetcially?
and how is it godly to allow the person to ignore truths. how do you deal with that? how do you do the really hard stuff? empathy is doable, but when someone is in denial, how can i deal with it as a proper image bearer. i know in my own life, when i remained in denial, god never left me, he protected me and when necessary he left me to my own accord/decisions, but he always loved me and i could turn back to him. it is very difficult to watch someone do that… it is painful to watch… i don’t know how god does it.
could i possibly be getting this confused with something else?
thank you for your consideration.
janet
Janet,
Those are very legitimate questions.
First, it helps if we see “empathy” as part of the larger relational process. Empathy is not all we do, though it is an important aspect of who we are and how we relate to people.
Second, in subsequent chapters in my book Spiritual Friends,” I discuss what to do if someone is in denial. Sometimes that requires that we grieve first for them…when they see our grief, they are “given permission to grieve.”
Later in “Spiritual Friends,” I disucss a more “hardened” form of “denial” in which the person is stubbornly refusing to face reality–as you describe in your comment. In that instance, we journey with the person from “sustaining” to “reconciling.” In reconciling, we lovingly “care-front” the person. I actually spend 100 pages teaching this relational process in “Spiritual Friends.”
You also might find helpful another of my books, “God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting.” It presents a biblical portrait of the journey from denial to candor and much more.
Bob
thank you Mr. Kelleman.
i just took a look at chapeters 11 and 12, thank you again.
and that had a good outline of my question.
sometimes i process through writing and speaking things out loud and i believe i picked you today
i am so sorry to have taken your time.
alot is going on at our church, my family, etc, life and it is hard so i probably just panicked a bit.
because i want to do it god’s way, and i don’t want to mess up his image… HE has been so good to me.
thank you again for your time… i will continue to study the book and i will study the other book too…
thank you again so much,
janet
hello again,
on page 255 at the bottom in softening subbornness with your words, draw the line, paragragph….
what happens when the person never wants to reconcile…
that is such a difficult thing to face… because we can reconcile through Jesus difficult, painful, tormenting example.
we all have the holy spirit.
how to deal with a situation when a brother in christ, does not want to reconcile and remains stubborn.
when all of god’s processes and ways are being followed…
i don’t want to give up on the person, but is very painful to be hit in the shins (not literally) over and over and stubbornness is not
being broken.
at the bootom of your page you wrtoe I’ve decided that we can’t continue to meet until you fdce up t you behavior… page 255
that could mean that the person will never face up and then there is dealing with your own hurt of that person walking away, when there
could be reconciliation. how do you deal with that…
Janet, We never give up on the person, rather, we give the person to God’s care. As we discuss in “Spiritual Friends,” we need to apply 2 Timothy 2:24-26 in situations like this.
24 “And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”
It is never easy, and, as you say, always painful.
We are like the father of the prodigal, wainting with compassion every day for our loved one to come home to Christ and to us.
Bob
thank you for reminding me…
i got off track… 🙂
i am just a sheep who need guidance …..AGAIN.
yes, you are right, we wait and continue to love the person.
it just hurts and that is probably what i am dealing with right now.
and i want everything to be ok…
i will have to accept the pain and wait and be open…AND SEE WHAT GOD DOES and what the persons accept from god
i will wait for the persons… thank you again. janet