On Becoming a Biblical Counselor

Let me be upfront with you: I did not want to become a counselor of any type. I'm a teacher, and I'm a good teacher; teaching makes sense to me. If you want to learn about the Bible, I can help you. If you want to learn how to be a better Christian, I can give you books to read and even talk about them with you. I can pray for you and advise you. If you have issues that are big and need counselling...I can recommend some very good, wise, and sympathetic people! I have just never really known what to say to people in a counseling situation (except: stop sinning and read your Bible, and I think I need to be more detailed there).

Also, I looked at the Biblical Counseling students when I was at Masters (doing Biblical Studies, or "the course for people who want to teach, not counsel"). They all seemed so happy, and perky, and nice all the time. They just loved everyone and life was so wonderful and they were so earnest. I am not like that. I am sarcastic and blunt and I have issues of my own.

So what happened? Well, I have a very persistent elder who kept giving me books to read (which is cheating; everyone knows I'll read just about anything) and who insisted (and still insists) that I'm a good counselor. So I read the books and learned, slowly, that I don't have to be all the things those students seemed to be in order to counsel someone; I can just love God and love people and point them to His word. And I learned that counseling is sort of like teaching, only you have to spend more time uncovering what the person needs to learn. Finally, I learned that having my own issues makes people more willing to talk to me and listen to me.

After a while, I realized that when people asked me questions about the Bible and how it applies to their situation, or what I would do in a particular area, or just wanted to run something by me, I was counseling them. It wasn't too big and scary, and sometimes I could still be blunt (but I'm learning about gentleness and grace, and to save the sarcasm for more appropriate situations).

Then someone walked into my apartment one day for a discipleship session. It was supposed to be simple: we were going to read a book together and I was going to help her grow to be more like Christ. Only there were deeper issues, and they all spilled out that first day, and suddenly it was something bigger than we had planned. And suddenly I was officially counseling someone. It was a bit scary (it still is).

I'm still not sure I know what I'm doing. I just pray a lot, and search the Bible a lot for wisdom, and sometimes go to the aforementioned elder for advice and resources. And then I teach the women what the Bible says and how to apply it to their lives, whatever is going on. And I remind myself that counseling is just teaching people what they need to learn, and loving them, and letting God do His work.