THE BIG PICTURE
Have you ever hit your thumb with a hammer or hit your head on an overhang? If so, you experienced a critical factor that contributes to many of the problems of in the world. When you hit your thumb or head, at that moment the only reality in your universe is your pain. To get help, you have to step back from your pain and see the bigger picture. Maybe it is to get some ice for your head or ask someone for a bandaid, but you can’t do that if you stay focused on the pain.
ORDER OUT OF CHAOS
In many counseling situations, the troubled person is too close to the pain, to get any perspective on his or her options. They feel helpless—trapped—a victim. Their lives, at that moment, has no order or direction. Like your hurting thumb, they are focused on the pain. Your task as a pastor is to help them see the bigger picture. When you help them bring some order out of the chaotic experience of pain, they begin to feel empowered. They regain their power to exercise choice. They are no longer just a victim.
AND GOD SPOKE A WORD
As was true at the beginning of time, when the earth was without form and void, as creator of order, your task as a counselor is to help them put words on their chaos. As they describe their experience of lostness in pain or chaos, they begin to find some order. Before it was just a chaotic jumble of words and feelings, now as they describe it, they begin to understand it better themselves.
ON NOT LETTING THE CHAOS OVERWHELM YOU
In the next blog, I’m going to suggest a strategy that you can use in counseling a person or persons that can enable them to gain a perspective on what they perceive. It can work for a pastor who feels mired in the chaos or a person or couple who are feeling deep pain.
Perhaps the creation story is meant to be a parable for how God can work through us to bring order out of chaos.
