The Forty-Day Journey of Promise

Day Six: Watered with Our Tears

Note: Welcome to The Journey, our forty-day blog series where we’re learning life lessons from the legacy of African American Christianity. The series is based upon material from my book Beyond the Suffering. To learn more about Beyond the Suffering, including downloading a free chapter, click here.

Slavery in the “Land of the Free”

They arrived on two ships, one year apart. The second ship, the Mayflower, landed in 1620 with 102 Pilgrims seeking religious liberty. The first ship, a Dutch man-of-war, came ashore in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia, with twenty enslaved African men and women. Captain Jobe of the Dutch man-of-war bartered the seventeen men and three women for food to Sir John Rolfe’s Jamestown settlement. For the leaders of the Jamestown colony, Africans were mere commodities for European trade and servitude.

In the land of the free, American slavery had begun.

Solomon Northup’s Narrative

Solomon Northup lived free for thirty-three years in Rhode Island until he was kidnapped and enslaved for a dozen years in Louisiana. When he was first stolen, he spent two weeks in a slave pen where he met an enslaved woman named Eliza, her daughter Emmy, and her son Randall. His account of her separation from her children offers insight into the agony of deprivation, the need for hearing one another’s story, how not to empathize, and how to feel another’s pain.

Northup tells the story of Eliza’s life, as she related it to him, in great detail. After years of enslavement, she was promised her freedom and told that she was traveling to Washington, D.C. to receive her free papers. Instead, she was delivered to a trader named Burch.

“The hope of years was blasted in a moment. From the height of most exulting happiness to the utmost depths of wretchedness, she had that day descended. No wonder that she wept, and filled the pen with wailings and expressions of heart-rending woe.”

Spiritual Friendship 101

Of their enslavement together, Northup writes, “We were thus learning the history of each other’s wretchedness.”

They participated in Spiritual Friendship 101 by practicing the arts of story sharing and story learning.

Northup and Eliza were eventually conducted to a slave pen in New Orleans owned by a Mr. Theophilus Freeman. A planter from Baton Rouge purchased Randall. All the time the trade was occurring, Eliza was crying aloud, wringing her hands, and begging that Freeman not buy Randall unless he also bought herself and Emmy.

When he answered that he could not afford them all, Eliza burst into paroxysm of grief, weeping plaintively. The bargain agreed upon; Randall had to go alone.

“Then Eliza ran to him; embraced him passionately; kissed him again and again; told him to remember her—all the while her tears falling in the boy’s face like rain.”

In response,

“Freeman damned her, calling her a blubbering, bawling wench, and ordered her to go to her place, and behave herself, and be somebody. He swore he wouldn’t stand such stuff but a little longer. He would soon give her something to cry about, if she was not mighty careful, and that she might depend upon.”

His callousness models exactly what not to do when responding to another’s grief.

Northup, on the other hand, entered Eliza’s agony. “It was a mournful scene indeed. I would have cried myself if I had dared.”

Join the Conversation (Post a Comment for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)

1. What negative impact occurs when people are treated insensitively with words like: “Quit your blubbering,” and “I’ll give you something to cry about!”

2. What positive impact occurs when we treat people sensitively, as Solomon Northrup did with Eliza by listening attentively to her earthly story of suffering and by mourning and weeping with her?

The Future of Biblical Counseling: Dreaming a Dozen Dreams

As I pen this post, it’s January 1, 2010. It’s not only a new year, but a new decade.

Want to Change Lives?

It seems a good time to take a fresh look at the future of biblical counseling.

By the way, when I say “biblical counseling” I mean exactly what the Bible means by “one another ministry.” God calls all of us to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth–that’s biblical counseling.

My Biblical FAQs document tells you more. You can also learn more by reading my document What Makes Biblical Counseling Biblical. Of course, if you want the whole meal, and not only the delicious appetizers, check out Soul Physicians and Spiritual Friends.

But back to a new year, a new decade, and a fresh new look at the future of biblical counseling…

Introduction: What Makes Biblical Counseling Biblical?

As I speak around the country on biblical counseling and spiritual formation, I’m frequently asked the question. “When you say ‘biblical counseling,’ you don’t mean ___________ do you?” Various people fill in that blank with different labels—all negative to them. What a shame that placing the word “biblical” in front of “counseling” causes so many in the church to recoil in fear. Something has gone terribly wrong.

But there’s good news—the tide is turning. Warped caricatures of biblical counseling are being replaced by scripturally and historically accurate portraits of counseling that are truly biblical—and attractive (Titus 2:10). While no one can provide the final, authoritative definition of biblical counseling, I offer for your consideration this summary understanding.

Christ-centered, comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed biblical counseling depends upon the Holy Spirit to relate God’s inspired truth about people, problems, and solutions to human suffering (through the Christian soul care arts of sustaining and healing) and sin (through the Christian spiritual direction arts of reconciling and guiding) to empower people to exalt and enjoy God and to love others (Matthew 22:35-40) by cultivating conformity to Christ and communion with Christ and the Body of Christ.

Given this working definition, envision with me the nature and shape of the future of biblical counseling—twelve dreams of one possible future for biblical counseling as practiced by lay spiritual friends, pastors, and professional Christian counselors.

To read the rest of this article go here: The Future of Biblical Counseling: Dreaming a Dozen Dreams.

Join the Conversation

What are your dreams for the future of biblical counseling, spiritual formation, spiritual friendship, and one another ministry? 

Divine Counselor

The Anatomy of Anxiety

Part 24: SOUL-u-tion-Focused Ministry

Note: For previous posts in this blog mini-series, visit: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23.

Big Idea: Does worry, doubt, or fear get the best of you sometimes? Do you wonder where anxiety comes from and how to defeat it in your life and the lives of those you love? Then we need a biblical anatomy of anxiety. We need God’s prescription for victory over anxiety.

SOUL-u-tion Focused Biblical Counseling

The Apostle Paul’s solution to anxiety is not simply to exhort, “Stop being anxious!”

In fact, Paul is not solution-focused. He’s SOUL-u-tion focused!

True biblical counseling is soul-to-soul counseling. True victory over anxiety, worry, fear, stress, panic, and phobia only occurs in the context of relationship.

We discover this biblical reality in the larger context of Philippians 4:6-7.

Relational Healing for Victory Over Anxiety

Biblical counseling sometimes is accused of the stereotype of, “Take two verses and call me in the morning.” Someone struggles with anxiety and they’re prescribed Philippians 4:6-7.

Scripture is totally sufficient. It is not a lucky charm.

Scripture is totally relevant. It is not applied out of context—neither out of the person’s life context, nor out of the scriptural context.

We’ve been applying the sufficiency and relevancy of Philippians 4:6-7 for conquering anxiety when anxiety attacks. But certainly not in a “take two verses” mentality.

So let’s travel back a bit in the scriptural context of Philippians and let’s notice some relational prescriptions for healing anxiety.

*Therefore my brothers (4:1)

*You whom I love and long for (4:1)

*Stand firm in the Lord, dear friends (4:1)

*I plead with Euodia and Syntyche to agree with each other (4:2)

*Loyal friends, help these women who have contended at my side (4:3)

*Along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers (4:3)

It Takes a Community

Paul lives and ministers soul-to-soul with brothers whom he loves and longs for. Is that how we minister, or do we minister arms-length, giving one another spiritual stiff-arms?

Paul’s biblical counsel for victory over anxiety involves standing firm in community. With brothers and sisters in Christ. With dear spiritual friends.

“Loyal friends” (or “yokefellows”) is used only this one time in the Bible. It means being united by a relational bond as close as family. It pictures comrades, partners, loyal spiritual friends. A band of brothers. Sisters in the Spirit.

“Fellow workers” is sun athleo: athletes together! Teammates.

It’s not, “Take two verses and call me in the morning.”

It’s, “Travel with a few safe spiritual friends morning, noon, and night.”

It’s, “Cultivate a band of brothers, a sorority of sisters, a team of spiritual athletes, a family of spiritual friends.”

Victory over anxiety comes in community.

Making It Real

1. How do you minister? Arms-length? Spiritual stiff-arms? Solution-focused? Or soul-to-soul? Loving and longing? SOUL-u-tion-focused?

2. Who are you spiritual athletes together with? Who are your spiritual teammates?

3. Who are you loyal, trustworthy friends with? Do you have a band of spiritual brothers? A sorority of spiritual sisters?

The Rest of the Story

What sort of spiritual conversations can spiritual brothers and sisters engage in to experience joint victory over anxiety? We’ll find out next time.

Join the Journey

How can biblical ministry move from solution-focused to SOUL-u-tion-focused?