Sometimes counseling MEANS suffering

If someone approached you and said that sometimes in the counseling process it is determined that suffering is right where you need to be, how would you respond? If your first thought would be "wait a minute, that can't be right, the whole purpose of counseling is to alleviate suffering!", then you are probably where the majority of Americans and American churches are.  You are missing the point of your faith, if the point of your faith is Christ-likeness.  This is something that God has been working on in my life since I resigned as Pastor of a church in Indiana.  Suffering is sanctifying, and we, as Believers, are promised to go through it.

One of the biggest problems with secular, or even intigrationist counseling, is that it ultimately takes a man-centered approach to counseling.  The whole point is to alleviate pain and suffering.  While that is oversimplifying the point, this is a blog, not a dissertation and so we'll move on.  On the other hand, the objective of Nouthetic counseling is to bring glory to God by aligning yourself with His will through progressive sanctification.  The goal is Christ-likeness, which is the goal of our faith.

Christ was called "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,"  regularly He wept over the sins of others and of Israel, sweat drops of blood in the garden over His upcoming separation from the Father, and promises to His Bride (the Church) that if He suffered, we will suffer; if the world hated Him, the world will hate us; and that though we will suffer in this world, we can take heart because He has overcome the world!  Suffering is not only a reality, but a necessity in the Sovereign will of God.  Romans 5 tells us that suffering has a sanctifying effect in the lives of Believers, and in the end actually leads to hope as we humble ourselves and submit to God in it.

So far my examples have been mostly situations where our suffering comes from without, from other people, but what about when our suffering is brought on from our battle within...our battle with our own sinful self?  Christ tells us that if we are to be His, that we must take up our cross and follow Him.  Paul, in Galatians tells us that we have been crucified with Christ, therefore we no longer live, but Christ lives within us.  Scripture is clear that while we are redeemed, we are still redeemed sinners, and that we must daily seek to mortify our flesh and wage war against it!  Jesus tells us to take drastic matters, such as plucking out your own eye if it causes offense to God.  Sin leads to death, and on the way to death can express itself in so many ways, such as depression, anxiety, fear, worry, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders, suicide etc.  Sometimes to avoid these awful feelings we turn to substances that will mask them, rather than allowing them to humble us before God (I know I have).

Yes, as Christians we will (or at least should, if you're doing it right) suffer as we live in this world.  In that case suffering is good and glorifying to God and we should not always seek to relieve it.  Also, as Christians, we will suffer and be wounded in our fight against sin, this type of suffering (or discipline) should also not immediately seek to be relieved because God intends for it to serve a redemptive and sanctifying purpose as we allow it to submit us to God in humility.  Some of the great men and pillars of our faith as well as men of God that I know now struggle with what we have labeled as depression.  I can say with certainty, that some professional counselor seeking to remedy the situation is the last thing God wants.  Rather, I believe He would say, as He said to Paul "My grace is sufficient for you", and as He said to the disciples "take heart, for I have overcome the world."  My point, is that the goal of the Counselor is not to simply "get rid of the pain."  Many times the pain is a severe mercy, and the person seeking counsel as well as the counselor must recognize that God has ordained that the situation bring glory to Himself and greater Christ-likeness to the one going through it.  Once that step has been taken, then it is through prayer, discernment and the Word that should dictate if and how the suffering be alleviated.
If you are suffering today, remember that God is waiting to be to you the God of all comfort, even if it is to be within the fire, and not by removing you from it.  Let suffering have its work, He promises to use it for good.