5 Biblical Counseling Sustaining Skills: GRACE, Part 8

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 Part 7, we introduced Caring Spiritual Conversations.

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

The Practice of Spiritual Conversations

Our desire in spiritual conversations is to help our spiritual friends to live coram Deo (face-to-face with God). Our quest is to help our friends find God in the midst of their suffering. We want to send them on a God-quest where they bring God back into the center of their life journeys. Spiritual conversations in sustaining are a quest to encourage spiritual friends to invite God into their casket.

Spiritual Conversations and a Quest to Face God

I’m often asked, “Can you employ spiritual conversations with “unspiritual people,” with unbelievers, with pre-Christians?” Yes. The following sample spiritual conversations are especially appropriate when working with an unbeliever because they probe and plant seeds.

• I’m interested in how your spiritual values relate to this issue.

• I’m interested in how you are relating your spiritual values to this issue.

• Has your loss made any difference in your spiritual life?

• How are these problems influencing your view of God?

• How are these issues influencing your relationship to God?

• Has the issue you want to resolve made any difference in your feelings about God?

• What source of strength have you turned to in your distress?

Spiritual Conversations and a Quest to Face What Was Lost: “Life is Bad!”

Sufferology teaches that before our spiritual friends can see how truly good God is, they have to first be brutally honest about how horribly bad life is. Therefore, we want to engage our spiritual friends in conversations that help them to face what was lost. We might call these “casket questions and integrity conversations.” They help our spiritual friends to muster the integrity to explore honestly their disappointments and damages from a triune relational perspective—how it affects their relationships to God, others, and themselves.

• I’m so sorry you’re going through this.

• I can see and feel your grief and pain.

• What is this loss like for you? What are you feeling right now?

• What do you wish were happening instead of what you’re going through?

• Have you ever faced a loss like this before?

• What has been robbed from your life due to this? What is missing?

• What are you grieving over the most? What hurts the most in this situation?

• What do you fear the most in this situation? What if that happened?

• What’s the worst-case scenario? What if that happened?

Spiritual Conversations and a Quest to Face God in Loss

First, trialogue about how bad life is. Next, trialogue about bringing God into the center of the loss.

• What are you doing with God in your suffering?

• Where is God in all this?

• What might God be up to in all of this?

• Have you been able to share your heart with God? What have you said?

• What are you sensing from God?

Spiritual Conversations and a Quest to Wrestle with God

Biblical characters like Jacob, Job, David, and Paul, among many others, not only knew that life was bad. They not only knew that God was good. They also wrestled with the tension between a good God who allows evil and suffering. Spiritual friends encourage their friends to do the same.

• What do you think the Bible says about feeling and expressing anger or disappointment toward God?

• What Scriptures could we look at that illustrate how God’s people have talked to God when they felt that He was not hearing their cry?

• If you were to write a Psalm 13 or a Psalm 88 to God (Psalms of Lament and Complaint), how would it sound? What would you write?

• How would you compare your response to your suffering to Jacob’s response to God in his suffering? To Job’s response? To David’s response? To Paul’s response?

• If you painted a picture of how you sense God right now, what would you paint?

• What is it like for you when God seems deaf to your cry?

• When your soul shouts, “Where is God now? Where are His great and precious promises when I need them?” and the Scriptures teach that God is everywhere present and always faithful, which do you believe? How do you go about choosing which to believe?

Spiritual Conversations and a Quest to Cling to God

Wrestling with God is biblical (biblical candor and lament). As our spiritual friends wrestle, they must cling.

• What is your suffering teaching you about God’s power and your weakness?

• How could your agony cause you to cry out to God for help, love, strength, joy, peace, or deliverance?

• If you knew that God would say, “Yes,” to your prayer about your situation, what would you be praying?

• If God were to immediately answer, “Yes,” how would you respond?

• What Scriptures could you turn to in order to understand God’s perspective on your suffering?

• What passages have you found helpful in gaining a new perspective on your suffering? To find comfort as you go through your suffering?

• When else have you experienced suffering similar to this? What did you learn about God in that situation? What would you repeat and what would you change about your response to that situation?

Spiritual Conversations and a Quest to Not Lose Faith/A Quest to Sustain Faith

Historically, one of the main roles of sustaining has been to help believers to draw a line in the sand of retreat. To say, “My faith has been shaken, doubts have arisen, but I will not give up. I will not surrender to despair. My hope will remain. My faith is sustained.”

The following trialogues, in addition to helping believers to explore and sustain their faith relationship with God, can be helpful when relating to the unsaved.

• Has your loss made any difference in your feelings about God?

• It feels like your faith is slipping away from you and that’s scary for you.

• Tell me your perspective on the age-old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

• It’s hard to feel anything but sadness because of your son’s death, but some part of you would welcome genuine faith and consolation.

• How does your faith in Christ fit into your feeling and thinking about the loss of your son?

• One part of you wants some genuine relief from your deep sorrow, but you don’t feel open to the peace and assurance that your faith might give.

The Rest of the Story

In Part 9, we’ll learn about Empathetic Scriptural Explorations.

Join the Conversation 

What are some of the trialogues from today’s post that most resonate with you?

RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth