09 May 2023
As you might expect, someone with my background has studied a good bit in the field of pastoral counseling. Far too much of it is mired in the western churchian culture. That means most pastoral counselors are beholden to one or more major models rooted deep in western social sciences. I'm talking about things like Jungian Psychology, Gordon's PET/TET (and friends), Logotherapy, Transactional Analysis, and others.
The fatal flaw is that all of them together teach you to believe that their principles are generic, that they apply across the board in all cultures. The proponents don't understand that they are all rooted in western thinking, not universal principles. And so far as I can tell, not a one of them takes seriously the psychology of ancient Hebrew culture, as depicted in the Bible.
It all hinges on a fancy word -- "epistemology" -- which basically refers to your assumptions about reality. Western minds do not see reality at all the way folks in the Bible did. All the admonitions in Scripture are rooted in a radically different orientation on what is and isn't real versus what we are taught to assume is true in the West.
I have yet to see a single valid study published that organizes for us how to transition from our western churchian psychology to a biblical psychology rooted in Hebrew mysticism. Instead, we have a small handful of people still struggling just to identify the more obvious differences between the two. When you are one of a tiny handful for any kind of knowledge, Hebrew mysticism itself warns that you are going to have too small of a sample size to claim any kind of authoritative study.
I can tell you what I've experienced, and God knows, you need to take it with a grain of salt.
First principle: Covenant people must develop a high tolerance for psychic pain. If you are living in your heart instead of your head, then you know this human life really sucks, and that this is normative. The quicker you learn to reject your own fleshly nature, the less trouble you will have carrying out the demands of the Cross. This is the real meaning of "self-sacrifice" -- you are nailing your fleshly self to the Cross (Galatians 2:20). Yes, that's only a parable, a metaphor. In very real terms, you will continue dragging it around like a ball-n-chain for as long as your heart beats, and it will fight you over a lot of things. It will believe Satan's lies on your behalf.
You realize that your faith is crippled; you come to think of that as part of the condition under which you serve Christ. You realize that so very much of what you did before that day you knelt at the Cross were things that you now despise. You feel ashamed, guilty, remorseful. If you do not feel those things at least part of the time, then you don't have the Holy Spirit living in you.
Don't let the flesh cripple your Covenant service. Don't let it get back in the driver's seat.
Many nights as I lay in my bed, both in and out of sleep, I have had some memory come back to haunt me, something I dearly wish I had not said or done. You can talk all you like about putting that under the Blood of Christ, but that doesn't satisfy your flesh. It will keep nagging you about that kind of crap at the most random moments. It will constantly throw in a note of fear or dread right when you should be celebrating moral victories.
That's what I mean by a high tolerance for psychic pain. Nobody has to tell your convictions those things were wrong. Your spirit raised from death knows death, and those things are a taste of death. They are the stink of the grave, rotting and wormy. You really need to be able to say to that memory: "Yes, my fleshly nature did that, but that's not the real me." You bear the sorrow for it, but that's all in the flesh. Agree; condemn the flesh as a pitiful, awful creature. Confess God's truth that your flesh is an awful sinner.
And then sacrifice it one more time to Christ. Trust Him. He knows more about it than you do; your fleshly nature nailed Him to the Cross. Yet, He keeps calling out to us to follow Him, dragging all that death behind us. He still wants you to be His brother or sister. Your faith must rise up and declare the truth that His redemption covers all things. The pain will not go away until you leave this world, but the pain itself reminds you that this isn't the real you. The real you is the one Jesus pulls along in His entourage.
Sometimes it helps to verbally confess every sin that haunts your flesh. When it comes to mind, use it to nail the flesh to the Cross one more time. And confess that you don't allow that kind of stuff any more. You are too busy following Jesus, who knows all about your past. You have to be able to say it to yourself:
"That's not the real me."
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