5 Biblical Counseling Sustaining Skills: GRACE, Part 7
Note: I’ve developed the follow post from my book Spiritual Friends. In Part 1 and Part 2, we learned about Grace Connecting. In Part 3 and Part 4, we learned about Rich Soul Empathy. In Part 5 and Part 6, we learned about Accurate Listening.
In this ten-part 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
Caring Spiritual Conversations: Sustaining Theological Trialogues—Ephesians 4:29
People in pain need whispers, not shouts. Don’t holler curses; whisper grace.
In caring spiritual conversations, we use biblical wisdom principles to engage our spiritual friends in discussions that help them to think through their external and internal situation. The core relational competency necessary for this soul care art is the ability to trialogue.
In monologues you speak to me; in dialogues we speak to each other; and in trialogues together we listen to God. In trialogues, we want to make the presence of God the central dynamic in our conversation. We interact in Jesus’ name helping people to face personal issues on a personal level.
Our personal relationship with them helps them to deepen their personal relationship with Christ. Spiritual conversations invite our spiritual friends into an exchange so they can experience the passion of having been changed. They invite our spiritual friends into a vivid, robust experience of grace narratives through grace relationships.
Consider just a sampling of biblical passages that depict trialogues:
• “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20).
• “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Hebrews 3:12-13).
• “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith . . . And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:22, 24-25).
The Nature of Spiritual Conversations
The tongue has the capacity to offer life-giving resources that nourish the soul, or to be a power for life-draining energies that poison the soul. “Words satisfy the mind as much as fruit does the stomach; good talk is as gratifying as a good harvest. Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose” (Eugene Peterson, The Message, Proverbs 18:20-21). Spiritual conversation is simply good talk about our good God in the midst of our bad life.
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29). Spiritual conversations are grace conversations. Law conversations crush people and destroy relationships (compare Matthew 23). Grace conversations edify people and build relationships.
“Unwholesome” words are corrupt and rotten like decaying fruit. They’re putrid, defiling, and injuring words. They’re toxic speech—words that poison others, making their spirit sick. Paul’s emphasis is clear in the original language: “All words of rottenness, do not let come out of your mouth.” Spiritual friends restrain themselves, refusing to speak until they understand what words will be:
• Helpful: Good because they flow from moral character and promote beautiful living.
• Strengthening/Building Up Others: Edifying words that bring improvement and promote maturity.
• According to Their Need: Carefully chosen words that specifically fill up a need, meet a lack, minister to a want, or express care in a difficulty, where it is most necessary.
• Beneficial/Ministering Grace: Attractive speech that helps others to receive God’s love poem and become God’s love poetry. They are gift words—generously given, freely granted words that accept, that free, that empower, and that give hope.
To the Colossians, Paul writes, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6). Grace words are words of connection, giving, affirming, accepting, freeing, and justifying. They are seasoned with salt—they preserve relationships with God, others, and self.
James, after describing the fiery and poisonous nature of words (James 3:1-8), notes that, “with the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness” (James 3:9). In James 3:10-16, James teaches that Satan is the ultimate source of cursing words—harmful, hurtful, damaging words that wish a judgment upon someone. The most harmful words involve cursing conversations, law relationships, and condemning speech filled with wrath and scorn. Grace words, by contrast, are motivated by purity, pursue peace, and produce the fruit of righteousness (James 3:17-18).
The Careful Use of Spiritual Conversations
Throughout Spiritual Friends, you will read literally thousands of sample spiritual conversations. Because of the nature of the printed word, you will not be able to hear the inflection and tone of these sentences. You also will not be able to fully sense the spontaneity and individuality necessary in the skillful use of spiritual conversations. In other words, if you simply repeat to your spiritual friends these samples, then you will come across wooden, generic, academic, and out of touch. The samples are simply meant to stir your imagination, not to limit your creative, individual, personal interaction with your spiritual friends.
Additionally, be careful in the use of questions. I put many of the dialogues/trialogues in question form because they need to be so generic. However, think of spiritual conversations more as a quest to invite Jesus in, not as questions that push Jesus out and people away.
It is wise to question the use of questions, especially the poor use of questions. A few principles might help.
• As a spiritual friend, you’re not an interrogator. You’re not like Detective Joe Friday saying, “Just the facts, Ma’am. Just the facts.” Spiritual friendship is a conversation, not a cross-examination.
• Be aware that questions can cause your spiritual friend to feel like an object to be diagnosed or a lab specimen to be dissected.
• Never use questions as an excuse to avoid intimacy.
• Don’t use questions as filler because you’re unsure what to say. Instead, simply say, “I’m not sure where to go from here.”
When you do use questions, consider some suggestions for using them effectively:
• Always ask yourself, “Will this question further or inhibit the flow of our relationship, of our conversation?”
• Normally ask open-ended questions—ones that can’t be answered with a “Yes” or “No.”
• Use indirect questions that imply a desire for further exploration, without having a question mark at the end of your sentence. “That must have been hard when your wife left the room.” “I bet a million thoughts were going through your mind when your boss said that.”
The Rest of the Story
In Part 8, we’ll learn The Practice of Spiritual Conversations.
Join the Conversation
Who trialogues with you—listens together to God with you? Who do you trialogues with?
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