The scar on Joel’s face was still fresh—visible damage left by a recent suicide attempt. Joel’s life seemed chaotic and out of control even to the most distant observer. The closer you got to the situation, the worse it looked.
Joel was a combat veteran who’d lost close friends in the war. He could barely sleep; nightmares and hypervigilance kept him awake. Joel had also been unfaithful to his wife numerous times, and he was almost always intoxicated or high on something.
He wanted the pain to stop. He didn’t want to be a burden to his friends and family any longer. He thought a bullet to the head would make it all go away. By God’s grace, the bullet didn’t have its intended effect. It left Joel with a scarred face and a scarred soul.
And now Joel—or someone like him—has come to you for counseling. As he sits before you, wanting your help, you ask yourself, Where do I begin? Before you dig into Joel’s problems it may help to step back and look at some broad factors at work in every counseling situation.
Counselors must understand the dynamics at play in each situation—their own propensities, the perspective of the person seeking care, objective reality, and what God’s Word has to say. Sadly, it’s possible to compound the realities of sin and suffering when we don’t understand these dynamics. But with God’s wisdom, we can wisely navigate the tumultuous waters of sin and suffering in our own hearts, in the hearts of those we care for, and in the world where we live.
Counselors’ Propensities
Each biblical counselor has a subjective propensity to treat someone as either a sinner or as a sufferer. Each inclination has strengths and weaknesses.
Counselors who move toward people as sufferers tend to be compassionate. They weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15). However, they may also overlook sin in a person’s life or even justify it because of the suffering they see. This kind of counselor will be a great comfort to Joel and point him to God’s love, kindness, and care, but he may never address the sin that resides in Joel’s heart.
Counselors whose inclination is to move toward someone as a sinner are typically skilled at identifying both sinful behaviors and errant desires in the heart that lead to sin. But on their worst days, they may minimize a person’s suffering, fail to express Christ’s compassionate love, and ignore the need to lament significant losses. If Joel came to this kind of counselor, he may not be given the opportunity to grieve the losses he’s experienced, which don’t excuse his sins but certainly were influential in driving him toward them. His losses need to be taken to our suffering Savior.
Counselees’ Perspectives
A person who comes for counseling also views himself as either a sinner or a sufferer.
Some people seek counseling because they feel trapped in a cycle of sin. They want to confess, repent, and find accountability. But a sinner-first view can also drive someone to legalism, performance-based Christianity, or excessive guilt and shame. It may also cause him to ignore significant suffering that’s influencing his life.
Someone with a sufferer-first view may have honestly assessed his pain, seeing it as caused by some trial or tribulation. But he may have also developed a victim mentality, be blame-shifting for sins he’s committed, or be entrenched in hopelessness.
Navigating the Dynamics and Reality
What happens when a counselee’s perspective combines with a counselor’s propensity?
When a person who sees himself as a sufferer encounters a sinner-oriented counselor, he can feel judged, unheard, uncared for, and unloved. By contrast, the sufferer who finds a suffering-focused counselor may feel loved but also find herself wallowing in sorrow and struggling to move forward and grow. When the person who sees himself primarily as a sinner encounters a like-minded counselor, he may make great strides at changing sinful behavior, but if he hasn’t also learned to grieve past loss, his growth may be motivated by a performance-driven heart.
One of the biggest problems with our sinner/sufferer paradigm is that it’s overly simplistic—an outright false dichotomy. People are both sufferers and sinners (and a whole lot more). Sinners suffer, and sufferers sin. Sometimes sin and suffering are linked. People sin, and it causes painful consequences. Sometimes we sin in response to our suffering. Other times our sin and suffering are not directly connected.
People are both sufferers and sinners (and a whole lot more). Sinners suffer, and sufferers sin.
As counselors, we need to understand the whole person before us—his sin, pain, and all the rest. And we need to help the people in front of us to see themselves too.
Joel will be greatly blessed by a counselor who doesn’t step toward him as a sufferer or a sinner but as a whole person. A wise counselor will explore everything in each situation—the counselor’s own propensities, the counselee’s perspectives, and the dynamics at play between them. This exploration will help the counselor avoid mistakes and oversights and help her to minister fully to all the issues that the person seeking counsel faces.
The Gospel Coalition