What are 3 Things that ICHTHYSroe Biblical Counselors Strive to Do?

Biblical Counselors must do three things if they are to be successful: understand the person, simplify and clarify what is complex, and bring him/her into the alignment with God’s truth.

First, in order to understand the person, it is imperative to humbly engage with him/her through attentive listening and wise discerning of the person in all of their intricacies.  Other times, it is not just through listening, but also observing what they are not saying verbally, but are presenting in the here-and-now of the therapeutic relationship; i.e., mannerisms, non-verbal cues, etc.

Second, it is necessary to help a person take a step back from their issues, cut through the clutter of confusion (from themselves) and deception (from the enemy/world), and see themselves and their situations clearly.  Biblical counselors must draw out the heat of the situation by highlighting what the person desires now, what they remember from their initiating circumstances, how they were affected, and what wonderful or wretched consequences arose from their moral responses.  This gives the counselee a clearer view of what is percolating from his/her heart, what the experiential pieces their lives have fragmented into, what allegiances they have formed with God or the enemy to cope, and what condition their body/brain and soul are currently in.

Third, Biblical counselors can then pursue the counselee as not only a paying client or fellow human being, but as a brother/sister-in-the-faith.  This means we must lovingly process alongside the counselee: inviting them to reinterpret scenarios by revealing who God is, who the counselee is in relation to Him, and what that grace-filled relationship entails in terms of the power, love, and a self-controlled sound mind coming from the Holy Spirit as Counselor (2 Tim. 1:7); all the while they learn to lovingly pray to God as the counselee’s part is revealed in His glorious story as it unfolds.

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