A Word from Bob 

Today’s post is “how not to counsel.” If you want to see the opposite, take a look at: If Heman Saw a Comforting Counselor.

Also, you can download a free twenty-four page PDF of both posts, here: Biblical Counseling and the Dark Night of the Soul: If Heman Saw Two Very Different Counselors!

Job’s Miserable Comforters 

After thirteen chapters of confrontation over his suffering, Job had had enough.

“Then Job replied:

‘I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you!

Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?

I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you.

But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief’” (Job 16:1-5).

If Heman Were to Visit a Miserable Counselor… 

Reflecting on Job’s experience, I started wondering what it might sound like, and be like, if Heman—the human author of Psalm 88—visited a miserable counselor. In his psalm, often called “The Psalm of the Dark Night of the Soul,” Heman lays bare to God his suffering, pain, abuse, and trauma.

Heman faces his suffering face-to-face with his Father.

Sharing Our Soul with a Miserable Comforter

Imagine with me if Heman in Psalm 88 were to share his soul with a soulless counselor…

(Of course, no one would really counsel exactly like what you’re going to read in the rest of this post. So consider this “Christian Satire,” somewhat like The Babylon Bee.)

Miserable Comforter (MC): “I’ve read your Personal Information Form. We have a lot of Scripture to look at, that’s for sure! But before we apply God’s Word to your behavior, summarize for me in a sentence or two what your presenting problem is.”

Heman: “Maybe I can start by sharing with you what I shared recently with God.

‘Lord, you are the God who saves me;
day and night I cry out to you.
May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.’”

MC: “So, you have that half right. You started well. You prayed to God, called Him Lord, and said He’s your Savior.

But here’s your problem as I see it—well, as God’s Word sees it. You relate to God emotionally instead of responsibly. You seem fixated on feelings—crying day and night, asking God to listen to your crying. We’ll talk more about this, but it’s clear already that a large part of our focus will be looking at the Bible to see how you can put off a feeling orientation and put on an obedience orientation.”

Heman: “But I am overwhelmed with troubles. My life draws near to death….”

MC: “Let me stop you right there, in love. Let me just say, ‘Stop it!’ Let’s look at a central verse that you need to memorize and apply: 1 Corinthians 10:13. I’ll read it for you from the King James Version.

‘There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’

You see, you started with the word ‘but.’ You left out the most important word: ‘God.’ What if you had said, ‘But God’? That’s why you said you were overwhelmed with trouble. You have a trouble-orientation. You need a God-orientation. Once you have that mindset, then you’ll put off saying ‘overwhelmed’ and you’ll put on saying ‘I can bear this; I can suffer well because God is faithful!’”

Heman: “But…”

MC: “Let me stop you again. You’re back to that ‘But’ stuff. Start with ‘But God!’”

Heman: “Um. OK…. But God, I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like one without strength.”

MC: “I’m glad you added ‘God’ back in, but we need to add God in biblically. Have you applied Philippians 4:13 to your attitude and actions? ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.’”

Heman: “Perhaps I’m not communicating clearly. It doesn’t seem like I can be strengthened by Christ because it seems like I’m a corpse. Maybe if I shared with you what I wrote in my prayer journal to God…

‘I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.’”

MC: “Heman, thank you for sharing. This helps me to see your sin problem. Now you are communicating clearly. You have to stop complaining. The Bible calls complaint ‘sin.’ But don’t take my word for it, take God’s Word for it. Hear God’s Word from Numbers 11:1.

‘And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.’

This is why God’s wrath lies heavily upon you. Because of your sin of complaining. But God says that if you confess your sin He is faithful and just to forgive you your sin and to cleanse you from all your complaining unrighteousness—let’s turn to that now in 1 John…”

Heman: “I do want to be sure my heart is right with God. It just seems like He has taken from me my closest friends, and has made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape…”

MC: “Before you continue, I see another sin issue you have. You are a people-pleaser and you have made having friends an idol of your heart. You care too much about whether they like you or think you are repulsive. Don’t take stuff like that personally.

And, again, you’re saying that you can’t escape. But what did we just read about God always providing a way to escape? And what did we just say about the way to escape? Confess your sin of people-pleasing, idolatry, and worrying about how people see you. Memorize Proverbs 28:13, because it tells you the root of your problem—unconfessed and unforsaken sin.

‘He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.’

And now I’m seeing another sin problem you have. You’ve been infiltrated by mysticism. You’re talking about the ‘darkest depths.’ That sounds like that mystical stuff about the Dark Night of the Soul. You need to confess your sin of mysticism.”

Heman: “Is this all about sin? I thought it was about my suffering and grief. Like I said to God recently, ‘My eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, Lord, every day; I spread out my hands to you.’”

MC: “Sure. Suffering is important. I wrote a blog post on it once and did a podcast about it. I titled the blog, Suffer Well! I’ll send you a link so you can apply it to your life.

It’s good that you’re calling out to God. I’m not quite so sure about that spreading out your hands—that could get too emotive, but the rest is OK, as long as you suffer well which means putting off complaining and putting on growing like Christ in your suffering…

I wonder, too, about all your talk about crying. Perhaps you are depressed. You do know, right, that depression is a sin? I have a pamphlet on that which I will give you.”

Heman: “Well, I remember reading about Christ in the Garden sharing His soul with His Father and being brutally honest about His feelings…”

MC: “Yes, Jesus shared with His Father in the Garden. I’m glad you brought that up. But we have to interpret the Bible biblically, not emotionally. Jesus put faith before feelings; He put obedience above emotions.

Jesus said, ‘Not my will, but Yours be done.’ Be like Jesus—eschew a feeling orientation and partake in a faith orientation, then you’ll see your supposed ‘emotional problems’ for what they are—a sinful lack of responsible obedience. Let me make a note to give you my chart on The Emotion Train about Facts—Faith—Feelings.

Now, what were you saying…?”

Heman: “I was trying to share with you about my suffering. Here’s something else I wrote to God in my prayer journal.

‘Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do their spirits rise up and praise you? Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness in Destruction? Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?’”

MC: “I hear what you’re saying. Here’s your problem. You’ve been influenced by a worldly, psychological, man-centered way of thinking. The world says, ‘What happens to you is your problem.’ But the Word—God’s sufficient Word—says, ‘How you obediently respond to what happens to you is either the solution or the problem—depending on whether you suffer well or suffer in an ungodly, immature way.

You keep looking at your problems and blaming them. You need to start looking at your personal guilt.

That reminds me, be sure I give you our homework assignment on Distinguishing Between the World’s Idea of Guilty Feelings and God’s Truth About Your True Guilt.”

Heman: “That sounds like a LOT of homework. A lot of my ‘homework’ is prayer journaling, like the psalmists did. Here’s something I wrote recently.

‘But I cry to you for help, Lord; in the morning my prayer comes before you. Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me? From my youth I have suffered and been close to death; I have borne your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me. All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me.’”

MC: “You mentioned the Psalms. Maybe instead of making up your own psalms, you should apply a psalm like Psalm 23 where David, inspired by God, said that even if he walks through the valley of the shadow of death, he would fear no evil.

Did I mention that fear is a sin? I know I mentioned that complaining is a sin—and your journal entry is filled with complaining—sinful, irresponsible, guilty complaining.

And another thing, you haven’t been reading trauma-informed stuff, have you? It sure sounds like it when you talk about ‘terrors leading to despair.’ I hope you’re not blaming it on the brain. I pray you are not saying your body keeps the score. This is about your soul. Your soul is what’s important. And, responsible obedience, of course, is most important.”

Heman: “I’ve never even heard of trauma-informed. But I have read scores of Bible passages about how God fearfully and wonderfully designed us as a complex combination and interrelationship between body and soul. Perhaps that’s what you mean? All I know is it seems like God has taken from me friend and neighbor—darkness is my closest friend.”

MC: “There you go again—friends becoming the idol of your heart. We’re definitely identifying a habitual behavioral pattern that you’ll have to put off. But enough about that, for now.

You need hope! You said, ‘darkness is your closest friend.’ Write this down. Go ahead. Write this down right now:

Make God your closest FRIEND and you’ll never feel hopeless again.”

Heman: “I do understand what the Bible says about hope. And I do want to hope in God. But right now I feel so hopeless. Can’t you see that?”

MC: “I see what you’re doing. You want me to empathize with you. I’ll make a note to give you a pamphlet on Empathy Is Sin.

You don’t need empathy. You need confrontation. Empathy joins you in your sinful hopelessness. Confrontation joins Christ in confronting you out of concern so you can change from hopelessness to hope.

I mean, think about it. Your journal entry ends with the words, ‘darkness is my closest friend.’ No biblical Psalm would ever end with words like that!”

Heman: “I…”

MC: “Sorry to interrupt you, but our time is about up. Let’s schedule our next five appointments. I’m sure we can fix all of your sin issues in a total of six weeks.

Now, let’s pray, thanking God for all the helpful biblical truths about your sin that you’ve been able to learn today from God’s Word. And let’s pray that you’ll start taking biblical responsibility so you can suffer well and live an obedient life, not an emotional life….”

A Word from Bob: My Audience 

Who is my audience for today’s post? In a word: “sufferers.” In another word, “Hagar.” Mistreated, suffering, abused, Hagar was ministered to by God. Hagar praised God saying,

“I have now seen the God who sees me” (Genesis 16:13).   

If you are suffering, I want you to remember, God sees you; God cares; God is the Father of compassion. God sees Hagar. God sees Heman. God sees you.

God sees you not with a monocle—not with one eye that looks only through the lens of sin, guilt, and responsibility. God sees you with bifocals. God sees your suffering. God sees you being sinned against. God sees you living in a fallen, dangerous, abusive world. As Frank Lake said in the 1960s:

“Pastoral care is defective unless it can deal thoroughly both with the evils we have suffered as well as with the sins we have committed.”

The Bible’s biblical counseling has bifocals. It is not myopic. It looks at saints as sufferers and as sons and daughters who struggle against sin. The Bible offers grace to help saints who suffer and who struggle against sin.

I crafted today’s post for sufferers, for people struggling with depression, anxiety, fear, for people dealing with living in a fallen world and dealing with the trauma of abuse, for people who are groaning under the weight of a broken, sinful world. I crafted today’s post to remind you that the Trinity sees you. The Spirit sees and groans with you (Romans 8:26-27). The Son sees and empathizes with you (Hebrews 4:14-16). The Father of compassion sees and comforts you (2 Corinthians 1:3-5).

A Positive Approach

How do we address and correct this type of counseling? Answering this question is my focus in the book, Consider Your Counsel: Addressing Ten Mistakes in Our Biblical Counseling.

Some Additional Resources on Job’s Counselors, Psalm 88, Psalms of Lament, Grief, Suffering, and God’s Healing Hope

Here are a few additional resources—one’s that will model a very different approach to biblical comforting than was modeled in today’s post about miserable counselors.

For a post about Job’s counselors and their monocled view of people, see Paul Tautges’ post, How to Be a Miserable Comforter.

Here at RPM Ministries Truth & Love blog site, I’ve posted about, How to Be a Miserable, Non-Empathetic Comforter from the book of Job.

For a post from the Center for Biblical Counseling and Discipleship and Brent Osterberg, see, Three Reasons to Be Grateful That Psalm 88 Is in Your Bible.

Praying Psalm 88: Cries from the Pit by Stefan Nitzschke and Faith Counseling Ministries outlines five truths in times of trouble from Psalm 88.

From the Biblical Counseling Coalition and Kyle Johnston we find a very helpful blog about Psalm 88, Persevering Through Sorrow in Prayer.

Paul Tripp shares about Psalm 88 in his article, A Psalm That Has No Hope.

Christina Fox at The Gospel Coalition shares about Psalm 88 in, How I Gleaned Hope from the Darkest Psalm.

Jonthan Parnell, at Desiring God discusses Psalm 88 in, Worship in the Dark.

For convenience sake, here are links to my two-part series on Psalm 88. First, If Heman Saw a Miserable Counselor. And second, If Heman Saw a Comforting Counselor.

In Models of Lament, Ernie Baker and Dale Johnson talk candidly and helpfully about how Christians and how biblical counselors can apply lament psalms.

I’ve authored three books directly related to grief, suffering, lament, and Christ’s healing hope: 3 Resources for Experiencing God’s Healing Hope: A Trilogy on Grieving with Hope.

I’ve collated an annotated bibliography of 14 Biblical Counseling Resources on Grief and Comforting the Grieving.

Join the Conversation: Questions for Discussion and Application 

As friends, one-another ministers, or biblical counselors, we’d all like to think that, “I would never minister to a person like Job’s miserable counselors, or like the vignette in Bob’s post!” But, let’s be honest, we are imperfect—only Christ is the “Wonderful Counselor.” So, let’s use today’s “how not to comfort/counsel” as a way of considering our counsel and addressing possible mistakes in our ministry to others. 

 

1. Have you ever had someone like Job’s “miserable comforters” speak to you in the middle of your suffering? In your suffering, have you ever had someone speak to you like the vignette I shared above? If so, what was it like? How did it impact you? What would you have wanted from them instead?

2. Have you ever, regretfully, ministered to a hurting person like Job’s “miserable comforters”? If so, why do you think you fell into that trap of non-comforting counsel?

3. Have you experienced a “dark night of the soul” like Heman? If so, did you lament to God? Or, did you “stuff it” and “fake it” because you thought or were taught that Christians don’t feel bad and don’t talk about their pain and suffering?

4. Our “imagined comforter,” our “MC” (“Miserable Comforter”), denied Heman’s emotions, diminished his feelings, and shamed Heman for his pain and suffering. What is your biblical understanding of how God fearfully and wonderfully made us as emotional beings? What is your biblical understanding of feelings and emotions as a valid aspect of the Christian life?

5. MC confused lament and complaint. What is your biblical understanding of lament—of honestly expressing our pain and suffering face-to-face with our heavenly Father? Biblically, how is lament different from complaint?

6. What is your biblical understanding of grief, pain, suffering, and trauma? To what biblical passages would you turn to develop a biblical “sufferology”—a biblical understanding of suffering and a biblical approach to ministering to those who are suffering?

7. MC used the phrase “suffering well” to condemn Heman for his lament. Going along with the previous question, what does the Bible teach and what do biblical characters model about the nature of honest, candid suffering in our fallen world?

8. MC misused Scripture to shame and condemn Heman for being overwhelmed. How could Paul’s expressions in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9, the biblical truths of Romans 8:20-27; and the lament psalms provide a different, more biblical, more compassionate understanding of the difficulties of life in our fallen world?

9. In what ways is MC unlike our Father of compassion and God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-4), unlike Christ our sympathetic High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-16), and unlike our groaning Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26-27)?

10. MC, like Job’s miserable comforters, confused suffering with sin—confronting Job and Heman about imagined personal sin, rather than comforting Job and Heman in their suffering. As a spiritual friend, one-another minister, or biblical counselor, how do you seek to discern between issues of personal sin and issues of personal suffering? How could the comprehensive biblical concept of seeing believers as saints who suffer and battle against sin on their sanctification journey help you to minister appropriately to people like Job and Heman?

11. MC and Heman interacted about Jesus’s raw and real experiences in the Garden of Gethsemane. What does Jesus, the perfect God-man, teach us about the candid expression of emotions and about lamenting to the Father?

12. MC believes that “empathy is sin.” What is your biblical understanding of empathy, sympathy, comfort, compassion, weeping with those who weep, and suffering with those who suffer?

13. In “Part 2,” we’ll look at how a comforting counselor might lovingly, compassionately interact with Heman. Before you read that post, what would you do differently than MC in your ministry to Heman? How would you respond to Heman with biblical comfort and compassion?

14. Imagine if you were MC’s counseling supervisor. You’ve just listened to a recording of this session with MC and Heman. How would you begin to provide feedback to MC? How would you help MC to explore the approach MC took? What biblical passages and principles of one-another care would you examine with MC?