When we moved into our home a few years ago, we turned one of the spare bedrooms into an office. Bookshelves line the far wall of the room, and sandwiched between two of them, right in the middle of the wall, sits a large desk. It’s a simple one, with only a flat writing surface and some shelves beneath, nothing to block the view from the window right above it that looks out onto the street. So not the best view in the world, but it does, at least allow for natural light and the view of an occasional bird or two and a small bit of the weeping willow in the front yard.
It used to, anyway. The desk is now overflowing with scribbled notes, used manila folders, piles of books and notepads and journals. Even the office chair will, on occasion, serve as an overflow, and more often than not now we’ll have to move stacks off of it to the floor in order to sit down to the computer, which also has as its residence the overpopulated desk.
When I started grad school two and a half years ago, I did pretty well keeping organized. Everything had its place. After each semester, I would place papers, folders, books, notes, and the like in a particular location, usually in a reserved spot on a bookshelf. And my brain, too, would feel nicely organized. Categorized, even. Statistics and Research here. Family Therapy there. Human Growth and Development in another spot. Marital Therapy in yet another. None of that lasted long, though, and several spaces in my life are now simply flooding over.
Let me say something at this point about my field. Marriage and Family Therapy is a really unique profession for several reasons. For one, there are an endless number of problems folks can be having internally or in relationship to someone else for which they are seeking help. Second, there are an endless number of approaches to helping folks with these problems. Third, how the problem manifests itself or seems to exist for one person may be totally different than for someone else, based on their unique personhood and experiences. Many therapists will work in one of (you guessed it) an endless number of specializations. Fourth, there are a seemingly endless supply of helpful resources, some of them written by wise and experienced healers and helpers, from which a therapist fresh in the field like myself can glean. Fifth…. well, you get the picture. Lots of possibilities.
One of the most exciting things about my present situations is that as an intern I am exploring these possibilities by working with a large number of different issues, and exploring a few different tried-and-true approaches to treating some of these unique problems. (Even focusing on “problems” reveals a kind of approach, and not every approach focuses on problems.) It’s been nearly a year now that I’ve been seeing patients, and I can still say that at least once a week I encounter something I have never seen before. That’s another unique aspect of the profession. I am constantly kept on my toes and forced to be not only humble in learning and creative in trying, but also deeply dependent upon walking with God.
Now maybe my stacks of books and mile-long Amazon wish list make a bit more sense. I find myself often living out of the urgent: I must learn about this; I must be ready for that; I must be able to work well with this… It can be quite exhausting. By the end of a work week my brain often feels like Malt-O-Meal: mushy and expanding, running out of my ears.
I’ve been searching for awhile for another perspective on all of this, a way to understand both what I am doing and what I need to do as I prepare, as my hands are “trained for battle,” as David put it in the Psalms (18:34). This morning, I finally got a glimpse of a picture simple enough to work for me (and so simple that it was easily missed).
It’s from Jesus. I mean, of course it is — God gave this picture to me this morning — but I mean that the words come right from His mouth, in Matthew 13:52. He says this: “Then you see how every student well-trained in God’s kingdom is like the owner of a general store who can put his hands on anything you need, old or new, exactly when you need it” (The Message).
There it is. It’s a simple thought, really, but there’s a lot there. We get to be students of Jesus, trained in living life that is truly life, and who has these treasures stored up within our deep hearts, able to pull out what’s needed when it’s needed. These treasures may be encouragement, exortation, caution, teaching, compassion, empathy, direction, clarity, meaning, joining with someone in the mess of their life — all these things. More importantly, though, and more to the point of life in the Kingdom, I think these treasures have to do with presence, with the weight of our lives impacting someone else. I think the treasures are, simply put, our hearts, and the grace to join in relationship with someone else from the heart.
One of the pitfalls of my graduate training is that, in focusing on theories of counseling and techniques of therapy developed over the decades by hundreds (literally) of practicioners, we begin to think, even subtly, that for every person, every issue, every broken place, every event, we have to have an answer, a fix, a solution. Especially in the culture we’re in, where microwavable meals are ready in minutes, technology changes quickly, and medical advances allow for restoration of physical injuries and illnesses that would have spelled disaster even just a few years ago.
But that’s not the invitation of Jesus. That’s not His way. Think of it. He could have handed us a playbook on day one, a set of principles and techniques to live out in every circumstance of life (though, admittedly, it would be quite a thick volume). He chose instead of give us one, and leave out libraries worth (John the Beloved may have been expressing some of the frustration at leaving out so much — see John 21:25). And the book He left us with is chock full of one repeating, alluring, frightening intrigue: relationship. Covenant. Friendship. Intimacy. Connection. Like it or not, that’s His desire with us.
And it makes sense. I can’t imagine how disappoined we’d be if when we were young our father handed us some notes and said, “Son (or daughter), here is everything I know concerning anything you’ll run into over the next 10 years. Inside are all the instructions that I want you to carry out and everything I want you to do, including where you are to be 10 years from now when I’ll come back and see how you’ve done.” Forget that. No way. That’s slavery, not intimacy. Rather, for those of us who had good fathers (and for those of us who didn’t, think of what you would’ve wanted with your father), we were invited into relationship… he taught us how to bait a hook, how to ride a bike, how to count money, what to do when you like a girl (or, for daughters, how boys only “want one thing” at that age), and how much he delights in us, how proud he is of how we’re doing. We need counsel — we go to him. We get hurt, we need his affection. We get an applause at our school play, and we look for his face in the crowd. With him we learn to walk, we wrestle, we feel his strong protection, we grow up to be like him. Eventually, we share a beer and a steak with him and talk about politics and local happenings. We share life together. That’s the ideal, anyway.
That’s a picture of what we’re invited into with God. He wants that with us, and more.
Jesus’ mission is one of healing and restoration, right? It’s a ministry He laid out in Isaiah 61, that He announced in Luke 4:18-19, and that He comissioned for us to carry on — see Luke 10:19, Mark 16:15-18, John 16:8-15, Matthew 28:18-20. He isn’t interested only in this work getting done; He’s interested also in joining us while we do it — or us joining Him while He does, as it’s probably better said. This is the kind of work happening in the Christian counseling office. He in no way intends to give us every technique we need. That would rip us off from the relationship. Instead, we get to walk with Him, hear Him, let Him lead and teach us — like a good father would!
In the context of that relationship, and the relationship-of-the-heart we offer one another, there will necessarily be healing and restoration taking place. But it’s always, always, in that context. That’s the way the Kingdom works. It is a partnership — us with God and (because of His generosity), us with one another. Understanding human nature, its corruption and disconnection, processes of restoring it back to health and wholeness, and techniques that lead to that — these are important, and crucial, in my opinion, for the Christian therapist to understand and implement in constantly growing clarity and skill. But they are not a replacement for that really scary invitation to walk with the Lord Jesus, move with the Spirit of God, and know the heart of the Father.
I’ve got a few more months of grad school to complete. There’s more to learn — more books to read, people to glean wisdom from, notes to take, documents and articles and ideas to work through. I suspect there always will be — and I certainly hope that to be the case. I’m sure I’ll be moving more piles around and trying to organize all the information. But the important thing is not on the theory. It’s not on the principles. It’s not the formulaic approach to life. The treasure is God, relationship with Him, and our hearts restored to the capacity to enjoy Him. Forever. To the extent that we can live in and offer that, whatever our profession, then we are learning to live well and easy in the Kingdom come. Most of my core training in the Kindom comes from learning to hear the voice of the Lord God, to submit to Him, to allow Him to work in me, to join Him from the heart, and to be transformed. Only from that Center will any of the rest find its rightful place.
