5 Biblical Counseling Sustaining Skills: GRACE, Part 9
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 and Part 8, we learned about 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
Empathetic Scriptural Explorations: Sustaining Biblical Trialogues—Isaiah 61:1-3
Spiritual conversations use broad theological concepts to prompt people to ponder more deeply their walk with God.
Scriptural explorations use specific applicable biblical passages to help people to relate God’s truth to their circumstances.
Isaiah 61:1-3 provides the purposes for sustaining scriptural explorations:
• Preach good news to the poor.
• Bind up the brokenhearted.
• Proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
• Proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God.
• Comfort all who mourn.
• Provide for those who grieve in Zion—bestowing on them:
• A crown of beauty instead of ashes,
• The oil of gladness instead of mourning, and
• A garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
• Call and envision people as:
• Oaks of righteousness and
• A planting of the LORD.
• Display the LORD’s splendor.
Notice the ultimate purpose of all soul care—helping your spiritual friends to display God’s glory by trusting in His goodness in the midst of life’s badness.
Specifically for sustaining, empathic scriptural explorations relate God’s truth to your spiritual friend’s life to encourage candor, complaint, cry, and comfort/communion. Imagine that you’ve connected with Alonzo. He senses that you’re in his casket with him. You sense that you understand something of what he’s going through. Having heard some of the depths of his soul through listening to his words, you’re praying silently for opportunities for the two of you to listen together to God’s Word.
In a natural, friend-to-friend manner, you long to help Alonzo to invite God back into the picture, into the casket with him. Your quest requires a loving understanding of Alonzo, biblical wisdom about the character and purposes of God, and biblical knowledge of Scripture. It also requires a wise, humble, and bold commitment to helping Alonzo to connect with God—his ultimate Spiritual Friend.
To get there, Alonzo needs to face life. He has to look in the mirror and acknowledge the ashes. Like the Jews of old, he must tear his garments and cover his head with ashes. He must mourn and grieve, singing the psalmists’ laments. He has to face life so he can face God. In other words, he needs to practice biblical candor, complaint, cry, and comfort.
How do you help Alonzo to experience candor, complaint, cry, and comfort? You could tell him—“Cry now!” Not so wise.
Or, you could teach him the four stages of biblical suffering. “Alonzo, for you to heal there are some biblical stages that we see evidenced in person after person throughout the Bible: candor, complaint, cry, and comfort. Let me share the passages and teachings that show us why we should do these, how we should do them, and the help they offer.” Better—in a given situation, in a given way. However, still not best.
The most helpful, effective way is the way of trialogues that use scriptural explorations to encourage personalized candor, complaint, cry, and comfort.
With Alonzo and others, you can use the following trialogues as a basic pattern for exploring biblical narratives/stories, psalms, or passages together.
• How do you react to this biblical story/psalm/passage?
• How is it different from your situation? How is it similar?
• How have you been responding differently? Similarly?
• What in this story/psalm/passage would you like to add to your response? How could you do that?
• Imagine writing a story/psalm/passage somewhat like this one regarding your current suffering.
• What would your relationship to God be like in your story/psalm/passage?
• What role would you play in your story/psalm/passage?
• Who else might be in your story/psalm/passage?
• Are there any characters in this story/psalm/passage who remind you of any people in your life?
• How would God give you strength in your story/psalm/passage?
• What would the theme of your story/psalm/passage be?
• How might your story/psalm/passage turn out?
• How would God work out your story/psalm/passage for good?
The Rest of the Story
In our final post in this blog mini-series (not so mini!), Part 10 will share sample scriptural explorations for candor, complaint, cry, and comfort.
Join the Conversation
Consider a difficult situation in your life. How would you use some of the trialogues questions in today’s post to relate a specific passage to what you are going through?
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