David A. Powlison - Seeing with New Eyes

Resources for Changing Lives

A series published in cooperation with

THE CHRISTIAN COUNSELING AND EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION

Glenside, Pennsylvania

Susan Lutz, Series Editor

Available in the series:

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

Paul David Tripp, Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens

Edward T. Welch, Blame It on the Brain? Distinguishing Chemical Imbalances, Brain Disorders, and Disobedience

James C. Petty, Step by Step: Divine Guidance for Ordinary Christians

Paul David Tripp, War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles

Edward T. Welch, AddictionsA Banquet in the Grave: Finding Hope in the Power of the Gospel

Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemers Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change

David Powlison, Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition through the Lens of Scripture

Counseling and the Human Condition

through the Lens of Scripture

Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition through the Lens of the Scripture

Copyright 2003, 2011 by David Powlison.

E-Book Published 2011 by New Growth Press, Greensboro, NC 27404.

All electronic rights reserved.

Previous published in print by P&R Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, NJ 08865.

ISBN 13: 978-1-936768-15-8

ISBN 10: 1-936768-15-1

All Scripture Quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

To Bob Kramer,

the man used by God to first open

my eyes to a shining new world

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,

may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened,

so that you will know what is the hope of His calling,

what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. Ephesians 1:17-19

Thats an eye-opening request. Unveil yourself, God of glory. Wake us up to know you, Savior-King. Enlighten the eyes of our hearts. Drive away the darkness that blinds, chokes, and shrinks us. Make us see.

This is the first of three books I plan to write about counseling. But its counseling with an unusual twist. Intentionally helpful conversationsthats all counseling islook different when you look at them from the perspective of seeing God. You see people and their troubles in a different light. These books will talk about problems in living, about conversations that seek to be helpful, about how to think through the things people struggle with, about skillful pursuit of personal and interpersonal objectives. So these books will be about counseling kinds of things. But familiar objects will be cast in a very different light.

Have you ever had the experience of getting angry, upset, or worried about somethingonly later to discover some crucial fact you hadnt known? Or have you ever been delighted with something or someone, and later found out youd been had? Something you had not taken into account explained everything in a different way. You had no reason at all to be upsetor happy. When you began to see more fully, everything changed. These books are about taking into account something that changes everything. Let me tell a story to capture this.

One day I noticed a disheveled stranger pacing through our neighborhood. He was chain-smoking, jerking his head to the side, and shouting out into the air, OK! OK! OK! He had a wild, disturbed look. After about fifteen minutes of erratically walking up and down the sidewalk, he started to trespass through back yards, continuing to carry on. Convinced that a madman was on the loose, I called 911.

A few minutes later the squad car pulled up. By now the man was standing on the sidewalk right in front of our house, still agitated, still shouting out OK! OK! The policeman cranked down his window, leaned out, and asked, Can I help you, buddy? (I could hear the conversation through an open window.) The man leapt over to him and effused, Oh, officer, Im so glad youre here. Im visiting this neighborhood, and Ive lost my little brown puppy. Hes named Jos. Ive been looking all over, calling his name over and over again. He doesnt know the area to find his way back to the house. Could you please keep your eyes out for him?

The officer paused, and said, Sure, buddy, Ill look around. He rolled up his window and started to drive off. I could see him slowly shaking his head, as if to say, Oh brother, whos the madman in this neighborhood?!

I had important facts that concerned me: a disheveled stranger, agitated, chain-smoking, repeatedly shouting a word that rhymed with oh-ay, trespassing. But once I saw in a different light, everything changed. Should I have felt threatenedor felt compassion? Should I have called 911or gone looking for a lost puppy? When you see differently, you interpret differently. You react differently, intend differently, act differently.

Its similar with those things, activities, persons, and processes that we identify with counseling. When you include God in the picture, it changes the way you think about problem, diagnosis, strategy, solution, helpful, cure, change, insight, and counselor. When the lights go on, you see God and know that God sees you. Not one of these counseling words can stay the same. The world is still populated with the same problems begging for help (in fact, seeing God, you see more problems!), but its as different as Jos or OK, reality or fantasy.

My goal in these books is to help us see God in the counseling context. How can we see what he sees, hear what he says, and do what he does? As we grasp this, we will become more thoughtful in understanding people, and more skillful in curing souls. This involves developing the churchs model for systematically biblical counseling. A comprehensive model has four components. A conceptual framework defines norms, problems, and solutions. A methodology engages in skillful, intentional conversation to remedy defined ills. A social structure delivers cure and care to people in need of help. An apologetic subjects other systems to criticism and defends ones model against competitors. Each of the various counseling models offers a version of these four components. Seen this way, all counseling models whether secular or religiousare essentially differing systems of pastoral care and cure.

Concepts are the first and defining ingredient in any system of counseling. Every theory defines its version of human nature and the dynamics of human motivation. Every theory defines or assumes an ideal of human functioning by which problems are named and solutions prescribed: right and wrong, value and stigma, true and false, good and bad, sound and defective, healthy and pathological, solution and problem. The various personality theories and psychotherapies differ from each otherand from the Biblein the ways they explain people and in the solutions they offer.

The Bibles truth competes head-to-head with other models. God speaks a truth that is intended to make sense of us and change us. It is not truth about how to find a job, or how genes transmit eye color, or how to fix a clogged drain. The truth that is in Jesus reveals and changes what we live for. He changes how we live. The Bibles theory for personal ministry mediates true Truth, claiming that other conceptual systems give expression to variants on the lie. Other systems of thought systematically suppress awareness of our dependency on and accountability to God.