Celebrating the Empty Tomb
Note: This is the fifth in a blog mini-series asking the simple question: Is there a biblical model for spiritual friendship, one-another ministry, biblical counseling, and pastoral counseling?
Read Part 1: Spiritual Map Quest, Part 2: God’s Treasure Map, Part 3: Biblical Soul Care for Suffering, and Part 4: Climbing in the Casket. 
I’m summarizing these posts from Spiritual Friends.
God’s Biblical Counseling GPS # 2: Healing—“It’s Possible to Hope”
In sustaining, we said that we should not be ignorant of our friend’s earthly story of suffering. In healing, we are saying that neither should we be ignorant of God’s larger story of hope.
When we are ignorant of God’s story, then we allow Satan’s lying story to win the day. His story proclaims, “Curse God and die.” His story reads, “Life is bad and so is God. Life is bad because God doesn’t care about you.” Before our friends buy the lie, they need healing.
What if our friends do buy the lie? What if we leave them in the casket? They know we care, but that’s all they know. Sustaining faith is an awesome starting point, but an awful finish line. Notice how Paul moved from the casket of despair to the resurrection of hope.
“But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9b).
Like Paul, in healing we’re sharing the power of Christ’s resurrection.
We need to stretch our spiritual friends to God’s eternal story of hope. They need to know that “it’s possible to hope because God is good, even when life is bad.” We encourage our spiritual friends in the biblical sense of that word—to stir up courage to face life with God and for God.
We encourage through extensio animi ad magna—stretching the soul to great things. Soul stretching is necessary in the midst of suffering because when life stinks, our perspective shrinks. Created for Paradise, we find ourselves in a desert. Naturally, we’re parched, thirsty. In our thirst, Satan tempts us to forget to remember God (Job 1-2). We feel as though Father has skipped town, abandoned us to this evil world, and left us orphans.
Seeing with Spiritual Eyes
So, we need spiritual eyes to see life from God’s eternal perspective.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
Spiritual friends learn how to perform spiritual laser surgery on their friends by engaging in spiritual conversations that invite God back into the picture. They create a greater God awareness by developing a spiritual curiosity. “I wonder where God is in this? I wonder what he’s up to? I know he always has a plan. He amazes me how he works stuff out. Where do you see him at work even in this?”
Their spiritual curiosity causes them to see what others might miss and pursue what others might ignore. They scope out and share ways their spiritual friend is already connecting to God. “Jim, how in the world have you been able to cooperate with God to survive and thrive like you have? It’s amazing to me what a loving, together man you are. God sure has been doing a great work of healing in your life over the years.”
When we’re at the end of our rope, there’s less of us and more of God. When we embrace and face our suffering, then we can embrace and face our need for God. As in Paul’s soul, so in ours:
“This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9).
During the dark night of the soul, as we trudge through the valley of the shadow of death, God is present. He does care. He comforts. He heals and delivers—in his time and in his way—but he always heals. “He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:10). Paul knows that God has a good heart.
Did you notice who Paul hopes in? “God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9, emphasis added).
In sustaining, our calling is to climb in the casket. In healing, our joy is to celebrate the empty tomb!
In his excellent book Mourning into Dancing, Walter Wangerin teaches us to embrace our daily deaths so that we can experience daily resurrections. Death is always experienced as separation. So every event of separation (divorce, job loss, empty nest, fractured relationships, illness, etc.) is a “mini-death.”
When we invite God into the casket of our mini-deaths, then we can experience daily resurrection. Every day is Easter when we hope in God. Again, as Paul reminds us:
“Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened so that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9, emphasis added).
The Rest of the Story
I invite you to return for Part 6 where we learn about Biblical Counseling through Reconciling: “It’s Horrible to Sin, but Wonderful to Be Forgiven.”
Join the Conversation
Who has helped you to see life with 20/20 spiritual visions? With spiritual eyes? With God’s eternal perspective?
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