I am not the Wonderful Counselor

I had the most freeing revelation recently. It’s not something I didn’t already know, but it is something I can easily forget.

I remembered, like the sun breaking through the clouds, that I am not God.

Cue a long exhale. Phew.

I am not God.

I don’t have to be. As much as my flesh believes the opposite - that I have to be or, most absurdly of all, can be God - the truth, thankfully, remains the same. God is very much capable and present being Himself.

Sometimes, as Christian therapists and counselors, we forget that though, don’t we? I do anyway.

Sometimes I get to the end of a session and feel like I’ve been clenching my jaw and holding my breath for 45 minutes. I feel exhausted. Anxious. Uneasy. Just like I teach my clients to pay attention to the messages their bodies + emotions are sending them, I’ve found that the message my body + emotions are sending me in these moments is:

You’re trying to be too big.You’re carrying a burden you were never meant to carry.

What is that burden? For me, so often, it’s the burden of trying to make something happen. Trying to control what’s not in my control. A client’s readiness, their willingness, their journey.

Sometimes it’s the burden of trying to pretend that I’m more than I really am. More knowledgeable, more perfect, more put-together. As if I’m not just a fellow patient in God’s hospital. Healing, yes. Hopeful, yes. But still sick in certain ways. And still very much not the Great Physician Himself.

The burden of trying to be too big is hugely exhausting, not to mention a huge barrier to loving. The bigger I try to be, the smaller my power is to participate in the work God is already doing in my client’s lives.

I discover an immense amount of freedom, and power to make a genuine impact, in the simple acknowledgment that I am not God and don’t have to be.

Isaiah 9:6 says, “For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

The government - all power and authority in heaven and earth - will rest on His shoulders. He will be called the Wonderful Counselor.

Not mine. Not me. Jesus, the Son of God and Savior of the world.

I’m reminded of John the Baptist who was so very clear on who he was, and who he was not. “He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.” (John 1:8) When others questioned his identity, “he did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, ‘I am not the Messiah.’”

Oh my soul, why do you forget this and become crushed?

Be it pride or fear or simple forgetfulness, may I utterly reject the lie that I am or have to be more than a witness to the Light!

More than a sinner saved by my Savior.

More than a child loved by my Father.

More than a client in my Wonderful Counselor’s office.

More than a life-long supervisee under the Divine Supervisor.

In Jesus, I am free to stop being so big. I am free to rest, and follow, and let go. I can trust God to do His job. I can trust Him to heal and save.

When I feel my body being crushed under the weight of God’s job, it’s time to pause and look up. What is Your treatment plan for this client? What might You be working on in me today?

In the characteristically unexpected and upside-down ways that God works, as I become smaller than what my flesh would have me be, His power in me and through me becomes bigger. We’re not strong when we’re strong. We’re strong when we’re weak. That’s the starting point. Me acknowledging my smallness is the start of something big.

I can allow a client to be right where they are. I can allow myself to be right where I am. We are cherished and cared for and covered right here.

So often, the command is not to control or cling more tightly, but to open my hands and allow God to do His work. God does have an active assignment for me with every client who comes in. He does invite me to be courageous and bold in love. Yet sometimes, for someone like me, courage looks like being smaller than I’m inclined to be. Being less than a hero. It can feel scary to let God do the saving, in His own timing and way.

I’m reminded of the Serenity Prayer (written by Reinhold Niebuhr),

“God grant me the serenity, to accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life

And supremely happy with Him forever and ever in the next.”

God’s glory, love, and power are not most evident in me when I am trying to be too big. They are most evident in me when I am honest about the fact that I’m small, yet have a big, huge God who loves me.

What a relief that God is not asking us to be Him. He has not called us to take the place of Himself in anyone’s life. So we are free to show up honestly, and humbly, and human-sized, depending on God to be God. Discerning His will and courageously surrendering to it, one step at a time.

One of the gifts I can offer my clients is the truth that I am not God.

I am not the Wonderful Counselor.

But I know Him. He shapes my work as their counselor. I get to love them only because He has loved me and shows me what love looks like.

Dear soul, the next time you find yourself feeling exhausted, anxious, uneasy, in your work as a therapist and counselor, remember this:

You are not God.

Jesus is.

You are invited to follow, not force. Surrender, not save. Comfort, not control.

And that, oh weary one, is very good news.