Am i healed enough to offer help?

Someone recently asked me, "When does a person know that they are healed enough to begin providing care for others?” From a biblical perspective, I want to answer the question of when the transition from healed to helping should happen, and when a person with areas of struggle, weaknesses, and personal trauma can know that they are well enough to counsel others.

In my recent book, "The Revived Heart: From Hurt to Healed to Helping," I discuss in detail the nuances of God's healing work in our hearts, but here, I want to give you a reasonably straightforward answer.  In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, Jesus says, "Judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."

The need for avoiding hypocrisy is clear. Given our own need for mercy, we should not be quick to condemn others. Avoiding this hypocrisy is helpful counsel, and it is counsel echoed later by the Apostle Paul in the Book of Romans. In the Romans 2, Paul says, "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" The call to avoid the hypocritical judgment of others is obvious, and one we should heed it when looking to help hurting people. However, if all we need see in Matthew 7 is the admonishment to avoid hypocrisy, we are missing a critical part of Jesus’ statement.

“When you and I recognize and address the log in our eye, we can serve our brother or sister in removing their speck.”

While avoiding hypocrisy is necessary, this does not mean avoiding loving confrontation altogether. If we look again at the words of Jesus, we notice that he indicates a time for us to confront our brother. It is after we "take the log out of [our] own eye." Jesus says, "then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." There is it! When you and I recognize and address the log in our eye, we can serve our brother or sister in removing their speck.

Yet, what exactly is a "log"? A log in your eye is something that obscures or distorts your view. Jesus' illustration underscores a powerful reality: we often see the world and others through the lens of our wounds, weaknesses, or struggles. Our experiences give us context to interpret life. However, those interpretations can be wrong. They can cause us to see things that are not there. For example, betrayal can cause us to view others suspiciously, hindering future relationships. Lost can leave us fearful, seeing life as meaningless, and robbing us of drive and motivation.

Depression can make the world feel like an utterly depressing place, causing me to miss out on the joys of life and bringing on a greater weight of depression. What a horrible cycle! If I wrestle with anxiety, the absence of a firm structure can feel chaotic and make me interpret things as unstable or unsure. The manner in which "logs" in our eye can skew how we see things are endless. So, how can we ever be confident we are well enough to counsel others? I want to give two pieces of advice that I believe can help us confidently serve others despite our frailties.

First, provide biblical counseling. When I say to provide biblical counseling, I don't simply mean to apply Scripture to places of pain. This ministry provides, and I encourage you to provide, counseling that is biblical in its means, methods, and motivations. We are not leveraging our training, experience, and opinions via popular psychological methods to arrive at a client or culture-identified outcome.  Instead, we counsel using the Bible to address the soul in a way the Bible recommends for the purpose the Bible commands. God's word is the highest authority, with the most trustworthy anthropology regarding the human condition, and provides the most rewarding motivations for life, namely glorifying God and loving others. We must recognize any other motivation as logs, even socially acceptable logs that can obscure our view and prevent us from seeing where God intends to work in someone's life. If you and I are to provide responsible, unbiased counsel to hurting people, we must use the Bible.  Using the standard of God's word to answer the heart's deep questions allows us to avoid the ever-shifting subjective abyss of our opinions, preferences, and personal experiences. 

“An unattended log in my eye disqualifies me from helping because it signifies that I am unaware of its influence on my ability to objectively tend to the wounds of another.”

Second, recognize that you are on the same journey of sanctification. A log in your eye can influence the counsel you give. Consider there may be areas of personal trauma that make it difficult to be merciful toward others. If your spouse has committed infidelity, how challenging would it be for you to offer loving counsel to an unfaithful spouse, for example? Also, just as there can be wounds that may cause you to be less merciful to others struggling, there can be areas that, if we're not careful, can cause us to grade on a scale. If we struggle in a particular area, we may become less likely to hold someone accountable. If you struggle to control your temper, are you willing to responsibly address the counselee's uncontrolled temper? Or do you minimize the sin for the sake of your (hopefully) afflicted conscience? Recognizing the planks or areas of weakness and applying God's word to ourselves is getting the plank out of our eyes. It means I recognize that I, too, am in the sanctification process and invite God into my counseling so that I can see, with balanced scales, what he sees. An unattended log in my eye disqualifies me from helping because it signifies that I am unaware of my own sinful nature's influence on my ability to tend to the wounds of another objectively. You and I are ready to go from being healed to helping when we are able to 1. Examine life through the lens of God's word. 2. We out our sanctification and can both confront responsibly and comfort gently those we seek to counsel.  

Hebrews 13 urges us to exhort one another daily, and loving encouragement is the heart of biblical counseling. Along with the counselee, the counselor seeks to identify where God may be using present circumstance to continue his sanctifying work, and so admonishes the brothers or sisters to agree with God. Helping others does not require that we be made perfect. We are all in the process of the Holy Spirit's sanctifying work and will remain until we see Jesus face to Face. "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). Offering counsel to others does not mean we have it all together but that we are willing to encourage others just as we need encouragement.

Jesus does intend for us to confront and comfort each other. In a spirit of gentleness (Galatians 6:1), we are asked to restore others who are found to be in sin. Doing so means that we are able to recognize and acknowledge when others have sinned. While all counseling does not involve confronting sin, it does require that we serve others who are wrestling with weaknesses - even weaknesses with which we may struggle. Being sinners ourselves, with weaknesses and in the process of being sanctified, we seek to address the weaknesses of others out of a desire to see them both comforted and formed to the image of Jesus.

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