Lecture 6: Marriage and Family Counseling

00:00:00.000 | If you want to grab your Bible, let's go over to, for a moment, to the book of Proverbs.

00:00:13.020 | And let's go over to Proverbs, and we're interested in chapter 4.

00:00:21.140 | And we're interested in verse 18.

00:00:23.780 | I think I may have mentioned this earlier in the class period, if there ever is a verse

00:00:28.020 | in the Old Testament that is a wonderful verse on progressive sanctification in the Old Testament,

00:00:34.220 | it's got to be Proverbs 4.18, "The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that

00:00:38.760 | shines brighter and brighter until the full day."

00:00:42.620 | That is God's ability to change lives, change marriages, change homes.

00:00:55.660 | And if Christians are involved, and you're counseling Christians, then as the counseling

00:01:00.980 | progresses from one appointment to another appointment, you should be able to see real

00:01:08.840 | progress and growth.

00:01:11.420 | Now some people are going to grow, and some families are going to grow faster than others.

00:01:16.140 | Some are going to be like turtles.

00:01:17.740 | Others are going to be like jackrabbits.

00:01:20.820 | Some will move along very, very quickly, and then others will move along very, very slowly.

00:01:25.900 | But you'll be able to discern progress, the light getting brighter and brighter, sort

00:01:32.860 | of as the sun comes up, as the day goes along.

00:01:37.180 | And that's what should be happening in counseling.

00:01:43.980 | Then you skip down to verse 22, "For they are life to those who find them."

00:01:48.580 | That is the words of knowledge are, "And health to all the body.

00:01:53.940 | Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life."

00:01:57.540 | Ultimately, real change is not going to be just merely behavioral or external between

00:02:05.740 | a husband or a wife, or between parents and their kids.

00:02:11.960 | Certainly there needs to be behavioral changes.

00:02:13.820 | There needs to be changes in what they say to one another and how they treat one another.

00:02:19.260 | But it's got to be more than that.

00:02:20.820 | It's got to be change on a heart level, how they think and view other people in the family,

00:02:27.380 | how they think and view their spouse, their children, their parents.

00:02:34.740 | What they want out of life, what they desire more than anything else, that's what's got

00:02:39.980 | to change.

00:02:40.980 | Otherwise, a person is only being a Pharisee if all they're doing is just merely changing

00:02:47.740 | externally.

00:02:49.580 | And if you can get, for example, you can help a husband and wife deal with communication

00:02:55.780 | and teach them all kinds of biblical, great biblical truths about communication.

00:03:01.100 | But if their heart hasn't substantively changed on the inside, like one of the papers that

00:03:06.660 | you've written on, Vernick's article on communication in the heart.

00:03:13.380 | If their heart hasn't really changed on the inside, then all the external behavioral changes

00:03:17.980 | is just merely polishing the brass on the Titanic.

00:03:21.780 | They're all going down eventually.

00:03:23.900 | This thing, all the communication techniques in the world is not going to solve problems

00:03:29.860 | unless people are fundamentally changed.

00:03:32.460 | All right, so I just say that by way of remembrance.

00:03:37.940 | This is what ultimately we're after, and we'll talk a little bit more about this later.

00:03:44.780 | We are still talking about, in our outline here, what are the process dynamics in marriage

00:03:50.780 | and family counseling?

00:03:53.060 | And we've gotten to the point where we started talking about demonstrating good analytical

00:03:57.260 | and instructive skills.

00:03:59.700 | And let me review real quickly, when we were talking about analytical skills, what we're

00:04:05.140 | talking about here is don't allow for generalities.

00:04:10.460 | The more specific you can get your counselee to be, the sooner you're going to see change

00:04:16.080 | in their life.

00:04:17.740 | Get them to be concrete and get them to be specific.

00:04:22.140 | Don't allow them to just generalize when you're counseling them.

00:04:28.440 | Remember to be humble enough to ask for confirmation.

00:04:34.460 | And I'm doing this constantly in counseling.

00:04:37.420 | I'll stop them and I'll say, "Okay, hold on just for a moment.

00:04:41.540 | Let me share with you what I hear you saying, and you tell me whether I'm right or not."

00:04:47.380 | What I hear you saying, and I'll put in my own words, I'm not going to repeat the words

00:04:52.060 | that they say.

00:04:53.060 | I'm going to try to define it in my own words so that I'm putting it together from my own

00:04:57.780 | perspective, and I want to see their confirmation of what I'm saying.

00:05:00.740 | So you've got to be humble enough to do that.

00:05:03.060 | Be sure to invite your counselee's correction as well.

00:05:06.980 | Now that doesn't mean that everything that your counselee is going to say is going to

00:05:10.260 | be correct, but at least they know that there can be a free exchange there, and if there

00:05:15.580 | is something wrong, they can help to correct you.

00:05:19.520 | So be sure to invite their correction.

00:05:22.460 | And be careful about interpreting the influence of the past.

00:05:26.100 | We don't want to give the past too much influence, because as Christians, we do not believe that

00:05:31.940 | the past determines us.

00:05:34.060 | The past does have an effect upon us, but it doesn't determine us.

00:05:39.740 | There are an awful lot of regression therapists who want to define the past as determining

00:05:48.900 | us.

00:05:51.820 | Modern psychology basically says that buried somewhere deep in your unconscious, or really

00:05:56.740 | your subconscious, is the key to your well-being, and you have to peel back layers of consciousness

00:06:01.960 | and get down to whatever that is, and only a trained psychotherapist has the capacity

00:06:06.140 | to be able to do that.

00:06:07.960 | And that's the key to your well-being, and once you're able to, in a sense, relive that

00:06:12.460 | past, then you'll feel a lot better about it, and that'll get rid of all your neurotic

00:06:18.260 | tendencies.

00:06:21.220 | We don't believe that that's the case at all.

00:06:24.660 | But we do believe that certainly the past can have an influence on us.

00:06:28.100 | We just don't want to give it the overruling power to determine the person at this particular

00:06:37.880 | point in time.

00:06:38.880 | They still, no matter what their past may be, they still have an incredible amount of

00:06:43.340 | choice in the present to choose to be God's kind of man or God's kind of woman, regardless

00:06:50.220 | of what the past has done.

00:06:51.860 | Now, you're going to get a husband or wife who will say to you at this point, "Well,

00:06:57.380 | you don't know what my husband or my wife has done.

00:07:00.460 | You don't understand.

00:07:02.060 | Back when we were married the first two years, they cheated on me."

00:07:06.300 | Well, that certainly has had a huge influence upon you and upon your marriage, there's no

00:07:10.700 | doubt about that.

00:07:12.460 | But that has not determined your marriage.

00:07:16.980 | It's only affected your marriage in as much as you've allowed it to affect your marriage.

00:07:22.940 | And it's only affected your marriage in as much as you have not practiced biblical forgiveness

00:07:26.660 | because they supposedly have repented.

00:07:32.220 | So the past can be influential but not determinative.

00:07:37.740 | Which brings us now to instructional skills.

00:07:41.740 | Because these are the skills that you need when you finally get to that point where you

00:07:47.140 | understand what their problem is, hopefully you've diagnosed that problem biblically,

00:07:52.740 | you know the passages of scripture you want to go to and explain to them to help straighten

00:07:57.100 | out this particular problem and address their heart issues.

00:08:01.580 | And now it becomes your responsibility, in a sense, to preach and to teach.

00:08:06.740 | Now, this is the stuff that we always like to do.

00:08:09.980 | This is usually the stuff that we're really trained to do.

00:08:13.460 | But in counseling, it's a little bit different than the preaching dynamic, and you have to

00:08:17.220 | be careful with this.

00:08:21.020 | Similar to preaching, you can use a lot of figures of speech and metaphors and illustrations.

00:08:27.760 | Sometimes I can explain things, I think, in pretty good depth to a counselee, and they

00:08:32.580 | don't really get it until I use some kind of metaphor or some kind of an analogy or

00:08:38.020 | some kind of illustration, and all of a sudden you can see the lights come on, "Oh, that's

00:08:41.740 | what you mean.

00:08:42.740 | I understand now."

00:08:44.300 | And that's what it stands out.

00:08:45.300 | Weeks later in counseling, they'll not remember all the details that I shared with them or

00:08:49.820 | taught them, but they'll remember that illustration, which will help them to remember key aspects

00:08:54.580 | of that detail, those details.

00:08:57.640 | So use a lot of figures of speech, use a lot of metaphors, use a lot of illustrations very

00:09:02.780 | liberally in marriage and family counseling.

00:09:09.300 | You know, it's interesting.

00:09:10.300 | You can compare the husband and wife relationship to an awful lot of things.

00:09:17.940 | Sometimes you can compare the husband and wife relationship like two people in a rowboat.

00:09:26.100 | Each of them has an oar, and if only one of them's rowing, guess what's going to happen

00:09:33.420 | to that boat?

00:09:34.420 | It's just going to go in a circle.

00:09:35.780 | They're really not going to make any progress at all.

00:09:39.000 | You get them both rowing, you're going to make progress.

00:09:42.860 | That's a great analogy.

00:09:45.400 | If only one of you is committed to this counseling process, then this whole process is just going

00:09:49.940 | to go in a circle.

00:09:51.660 | If both of you are committed to being God's kind of man, God's kind of woman, if you're

00:09:56.460 | committed to doing that, then we're going to make great progress in this counseling.

00:10:05.940 | So use a lot of figures of speech.

00:10:07.240 | You can use scripture and let them read scripture so that they understand that your authority

00:10:12.660 | is not self-derived because that's meaningless.

00:10:20.060 | I can share with them what John Street thinks that they should do about their marital problems,

00:10:30.180 | but that's not going to be particularly helpful to them in the long run.

00:10:35.820 | I can share with them what some prominent psychologist says about their problem, and

00:10:40.460 | that's not going to be particularly helpful to them in the long run.

00:10:45.260 | But I can certainly share with them what God says about their problem.

00:10:49.100 | Now that carries clout because it's authoritative.

00:10:56.300 | So you're saying to them, "Thus saith the Lord," and if they're Christians, there should

00:10:59.540 | be something in their heart that resonates with that.

00:11:03.260 | Wow.

00:11:04.760 | This is God speaking.

00:11:05.760 | This is not just John Street speaking.

00:11:07.220 | This is not just Reuben speaking.

00:11:11.100 | This is not just Andrew speaking.

00:11:14.440 | This is God speaking.

00:11:15.760 | This is what God is saying.

00:11:20.100 | And so that carries authority for change.

00:11:23.660 | Use a lot of diagrams as well.

00:11:26.580 | Use a lot of diagrams.

00:11:30.660 | And there's a host of them that you could be creative with.

00:11:37.460 | Use -- you can use the Y diagram, and there's a lot of illustrations you can use off of

00:11:47.180 | the Y diagram that goes something like this.

00:11:56.140 | When the focus of your life is Christ, then there's going to be a certain amount of fruit

00:12:00.940 | that's going to be godly fruit.

00:12:05.220 | When the focus of your life is self, then there's going to be a lot of rotten fruit

00:12:12.760 | in your life and in your marriage.

00:12:17.760 | So what do you want to do?

00:12:18.960 | Do you want to serve Christ, or do you want to serve self?

00:12:23.760 | If you serve self, then you're in self-destructive mode.

00:12:29.440 | And it's going to not only destroy your life, but it's going to destroy your marriage.

00:12:33.360 | If you decide that you're going to follow Christ now, this is authoritative because

00:12:39.920 | Christ now is going to enable you to be able to work through your problems.

00:12:43.600 | That doesn't mean the problems are going to be easier.

00:12:48.760 | It may be difficult to work through them, but he'll give you the answers to these problems.

00:12:53.860 | The difficulty here is, to begin with, this is easy, and this is hard.

00:13:03.200 | Later on, however, as Proverbs says, the way of the transgressor is hard, it gets hard.

00:13:11.200 | This starts out hard, but it ends up easy.

00:13:16.920 | Now this is very appealing because I want to take the easy road real quickly.

00:13:23.200 | Just give me a few things to fix my marriage.

00:13:25.080 | Let me press certain buttons, X, Y, Z, and then everything is going to be taken care

00:13:32.260 | of in my marriage.

00:13:33.480 | Well, that's not the way it works.

00:13:37.640 | In fact, this particular way means some substantive changes in your life.

00:13:43.620 | But if you're willing to make substantive changes, which is really hard to do, then

00:13:48.000 | later on life gets easier.

00:13:50.960 | Marriage becomes fun.

00:13:54.160 | God doesn't just want your marriage to survive, he wants your marriage to sing.

00:14:00.480 | But that means you're going to have to change, and that begins on a heart level.

00:14:05.700 | How you think, what you want, and desire the most is what rules your heart.

00:14:19.220 | That's what dominates your life.

00:14:24.300 | You could have a wife who says, "Well, all I want is for my husband to love me," as we

00:14:29.540 | talked about before.

00:14:30.540 | In and of itself, that's a good desire, but that can become an evil desire when she wants

00:14:39.540 | it too much.

00:14:42.780 | All I want is for my husband to love me.

00:14:45.460 | In other words, that's the thing that she lives for, that's the first thing she thinks

00:14:49.740 | about when she gets up, it's the last thing she thinks about when she goes to bed.

00:14:55.100 | All I want is for my husband to love me.

00:14:56.500 | Or you can have a husband that says, "All I want is for my wife to respect me."

00:15:02.020 | Now in and of itself, that's a very legitimate desire, but that can become an idolatrous

00:15:06.060 | desire.

00:15:07.700 | How do we know it becomes an idolatrous desire?

00:15:09.940 | Because when he doesn't receive from her the respect that he thinks he deserves, then he

00:15:16.340 | becomes mean, angry, upset, vengeful, or maybe he becomes sullen, depressed, withdrawn, silent.

00:15:31.180 | Why?

00:15:32.540 | Because he's not receiving the respect that he thinks he deserves from her.

00:15:38.160 | When that happens, this has become an idolatrous desire that now rules his heart, and he is

00:15:43.160 | serving self.

00:15:44.860 | That's the easy path to take, and it manifests itself in all kinds of rotten fruit.

00:15:52.300 | So use diagrams, there's all kinds of diagrams.

00:15:55.420 | I usually have a whiteboard when I'm counseling right in my office, and right behind me I'm

00:16:00.420 | able to grab a marker like this and put a diagram on the board, and we're able to talk

00:16:07.260 | through all the various aspects of that.

00:16:10.740 | Or sometimes I'll just use my Bible, especially at a turning point in counseling, and I'll

00:16:15.380 | say to them, "Right at this particular point, I sense that both of you, Ben, you and Barbara,

00:16:22.260 | are at a crossroads.

00:16:23.620 | You're right at a point, and you can either come down with both feet on man's side, or

00:16:28.340 | you can come down with both feet on God's side.

00:16:31.000 | Now what you've done in the past, from your history and your marriage, you've come down

00:16:34.500 | with both feet on man's side, and look where that's brought you.

00:16:37.860 | Now we've got one problem after another problem that you're facing.

00:16:43.020 | But you have the capacity to change things right at this particular point.

00:16:45.900 | You can come down with both feet on God's side and say, "Listen, no matter what, I'm

00:16:51.420 | going to do things God's way, whether my wife or my husband decides to do that, irregardless

00:16:57.820 | of what they decide to do, I'm going to do things God's way.

00:17:00.780 | I'm going to handle things from God's perspective."

00:17:04.460 | When you decide to come down with both feet on God's side, then things start to change

00:17:09.420 | in your life and your marriage.

00:17:12.260 | Now if only one of you do it, things will get worse before it gets better, because that's

00:17:16.380 | going to be really convicting to the other one.

00:17:18.940 | That maybe will make them angry, upset.

00:17:23.260 | That just highlights their sin even more.

00:17:26.380 | So things will get worse before they get better.

00:17:29.700 | I had a counselee just this week, that very thing happened.

00:17:34.660 | He's been in counseling now for several weeks, and God has brought about some wonderful changes

00:17:41.260 | in his life, but that has not been true with his wife or his children.

00:17:49.700 | And in fact, the more he changes for the good, the worse things get around the house.

00:17:59.660 | Because it's very convicting.

00:18:01.900 | They realize he's changed, and they haven't.

00:18:07.260 | And I told them, "Things are going to get worse before they get better."

00:18:12.100 | It's kind of like Joseph, right?

00:18:13.700 | It's like Joseph, when Joseph kept saying, "No, no, no," repeatedly, the Bible says there

00:18:18.540 | in Genesis 39 to Potiphar's wife.

00:18:23.100 | After resisting that temptation, resisting temptation, you think that God would have

00:18:27.460 | blessed him and honored him.

00:18:29.740 | But what's the fruit of that?

00:18:31.180 | Things got worse before they got better.

00:18:32.380 | He got thrown into prison as a result.

00:18:34.900 | I know a lot of Christians who say, "Wait a minute, Lord.

00:18:37.420 | I resisted all this temptation.

00:18:39.260 | I obeyed you, and look where I'm at.

00:18:41.420 | I'm in prison.

00:18:42.420 | I get thrown into prison.

00:18:44.860 | I'm falsely accused."

00:18:49.720 | So they sort of obey God with an ulterior motive.

00:18:57.880 | A lot of husbands' wives will do that, they'll obey God with an ulterior motive.

00:19:03.040 | They'll obey God in order to get their husband or wife to straighten up.

00:19:08.000 | That's very convenient, but it's not biblical.

00:19:14.560 | Use a lot of open questions as well.

00:19:17.920 | Those questions only seek yes and no answers, right?

00:19:22.600 | "Did you have a good week?"

00:19:25.800 | Yes.

00:19:27.160 | It's better to ask them, "Tell me about your week.

00:19:31.440 | What happened this week?"

00:19:34.440 | "Well, I did this."

00:19:39.200 | "Well, what did you do after you did that?

00:19:43.520 | Tell me how you interacted with one another this week.

00:19:48.040 | Did you have any problems?

00:19:49.560 | Did you have any conflicts?

00:19:50.560 | Did you have any arguments?

00:19:52.400 | Any quarrels?"

00:19:55.600 | Use a lot of open questions.

00:19:57.320 | You'll get a lot more data that way.

00:20:01.120 | And use a lot of role plays.

00:20:04.120 | Don't be afraid to put yourself in Ben's position or Barbara's position.

00:20:10.600 | Use a lot of role plays.

00:20:14.000 | Sometimes I'll do that in counseling to help them understand how they need to respond to

00:20:18.760 | one another.

00:20:24.040 | So use a lot of role plays.

00:20:26.920 | Use worst case scenarios, like the wife who says, she communicates to you that she's very

00:20:51.800 | afraid of trusting God and submitting to her husband.

00:20:58.000 | If I do that, he's going to ruin us financially.

00:21:04.280 | If I really practice biblical submission, as Ephesians 5 talks about, or 1 Peter 3 talks

00:21:15.200 | about, or Colossians 3 talks about, if I really do this, it'll ruin me.

00:21:22.760 | In fact, I'm supervising a gal who's counseling a woman who's in that situation right now.

00:21:35.120 | This woman, this is her third marriage.

00:21:40.000 | The first two, she was not a believer.

00:21:42.320 | In this marriage, she was a believer, but she met this guy at a church, and this guy

00:21:50.200 | had recently been saved out of the drug culture.

00:21:55.600 | And turns out to be a fairly irresponsible guy.

00:22:04.400 | But he shows signs of changing, which is a good thing.

00:22:07.440 | Shows signs of changing.

00:22:11.760 | And she's incredibly worried over the fact that if she submits herself to her husband,

00:22:19.040 | that she'll lose everything, which that's certainly possible.

00:22:26.320 | He could totally mismanage everything in the house, lose all the money that she has accumulated

00:22:37.360 | over years of really hard work.

00:22:43.880 | But that doesn't change the Bible.

00:22:45.200 | The Bible doesn't have a footnote in it that says, "Okay, wives, submit yourselves to your

00:22:49.320 | husbands," and then you go down the footnote and it says, "Except for you wives who have

00:22:52.400 | married husbands that appear to be irresponsible."

00:22:54.680 | It doesn't say that.

00:22:58.600 | There's no caveat there.

00:23:00.440 | In fact, the key thing is not holding on to the wealth of this world.

00:23:05.480 | The key thing is seeing past the wealth of this world and seeing the spiritual needs

00:23:10.400 | of the husband.

00:23:11.400 | Maybe she can be a dynamic testimony of responsibility and trust in God if she's willing to really

00:23:20.680 | submit herself into her husband.

00:23:25.480 | Or she could easily say to you, "But if that's true, I'll lose my shirt."

00:23:30.480 | Well, you could say, "That's true.

00:23:36.880 | You could do that, but it could be worse."

00:23:43.000 | What could be worse?

00:23:45.460 | We would lose our home and our car and, well, that would be terrible, but it could be worse.

00:23:54.480 | What could be worse than that?

00:23:56.240 | We lose our shirt.

00:23:57.240 | We lose our car.

00:23:58.240 | We lose our home.

00:23:59.240 | What are we?

00:24:00.760 | Out on the street.

00:24:01.760 | I said, "That would be terrible, but it could be worse."

00:24:06.120 | "I don't know.

00:24:07.920 | What do you mean worse?"

00:24:13.240 | We could die of starvation.

00:24:14.960 | Now, that certainly would be bad, but it could be worse.

00:24:21.000 | What are you talking about?

00:24:25.040 | What's the worst thing?

00:24:28.920 | The worst thing is she could dishonor God.

00:24:31.480 | That's the worst thing.

00:24:35.620 | She could dishonor God in this situation.

00:24:41.240 | Is obeying God more important than life?

00:24:48.440 | It's a great question, isn't it?

00:24:52.760 | Is obeying God more important than life?

00:24:56.440 | Well, if it's not, then certainly Christians down through the ages gave their life for

00:25:04.000 | not much because rather than disobeying God, they were martyred.

00:25:16.560 | What's the worst thing?

00:25:17.560 | What's the worst case scenario?

00:25:19.000 | Are you going to obey God or not?

00:25:21.240 | Does God know what's best for you and your marriage?

00:25:24.120 | I think you have to settle that issue deep in your heart.

00:25:27.760 | Do you believe that the Word of God has your long-term interests in mind and the best for

00:25:34.320 | your marriage in mind?

00:25:35.800 | Do you believe that?

00:25:37.800 | If you don't, then you've come to the wrong counselor because you came asking for guidance

00:25:44.960 | from the Bible and that's what I'm giving you.

00:25:47.760 | What are you going to do?

00:25:51.680 | Use worst case scenarios.

00:25:53.000 | Furthermore, use your counselee's involvement in readings, responding to questions, opinions.

00:25:58.440 | Get them involved in the interactive process.

00:26:00.680 | This should not be one way.

00:26:02.600 | In counseling, you're not just dumping your favorite Bible lessons on people.

00:26:06.600 | You're getting them to interact with the Bible.

00:26:09.160 | Sometimes I like to make that distinction.

00:26:10.580 | A lot of counselors like to dispense the Bible rather than minister the Bible.

00:26:16.200 | We're not out to dispense the Bible.

00:26:18.480 | We want to minister the Bible.

00:26:20.560 | There's a big difference between the two.

00:26:22.200 | A person who dispenses the Bible has a lot of favorite Bible lessons and a lot of favorite

00:26:26.560 | things that they like to teach people.

00:26:28.520 | They want people to be able to say, "Whoa, look, man, they are an incredible Bible teacher."

00:26:34.400 | That's a person who dispenses Bible truth.

00:26:37.320 | But then there is a person who really cares about the counselee and looks at life through

00:26:42.480 | their eyes, who ministers the Bible to them in such a way that it makes it easy for that

00:26:49.160 | counselee to bring their life into conformity with the truth of that Bible.

00:26:55.560 | So rather than dispensing truth, we minister truth.

00:27:00.920 | How do you do that?

00:27:02.080 | You get them involved.

00:27:03.720 | You get them interacting.

00:27:05.680 | You get them reading stuff and responding to it and questioning.

00:27:10.720 | You talk about opinions.

00:27:12.040 | You talk about their likes.

00:27:13.360 | You talk about their dislikes.

00:27:16.800 | Some of them you can take seriously.

00:27:18.160 | Others you don't take seriously.

00:27:20.680 | That's not the important thing, but you're interacting with them as a person created

00:27:29.280 | in the image of God who should be treated with respect and their problems should be

00:27:38.080 | treated with respect.

00:27:43.760 | So you use their involvement in their readings, responding to questions and opinions.

00:27:48.720 | Furthermore, you use a lot of encouragement.

00:27:53.840 | I think the Apostle Paul, when you read through the epistles, he was an expert at this.

00:27:58.840 | Sometimes he could chide people like he does in the book of Galatians, and sometimes he

00:28:03.760 | can compliment them for their great faithfulness like he does in 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians.

00:28:10.800 | The Apostle Paul is real good, but when he comes to the truth, he doesn't compromise

00:28:16.520 | and he doesn't, in a sense, withhold admonishment.

00:28:24.320 | He gives it to them straight, but then he encourages them, he urges them, he pleads

00:28:31.360 | with them, he persuades them.

00:28:34.640 | All of those are good biblical verbs and that's what we should be doing too.

00:28:40.160 | We're trying to encourage them to follow the truth.

00:28:47.980 | And sometimes that's exactly what counselees need.

00:28:50.120 | They know it, and they know it's going to be hard to really make the changes that are

00:28:55.000 | necessary for their home and their family.

00:28:58.560 | And all they need is somebody saying, "Now God has given you the enablement to be able

00:29:04.280 | to do this, you just need to go home and do it."

00:29:12.720 | Sometimes that encouragement comes in loving admonition, sometimes it comes in the form

00:29:18.820 | of rebuke.

00:29:22.120 | Dr. Bob Smith was a physician that I trained under when I first taught my biblical counseling

00:29:30.160 | training.

00:29:31.160 | I'll never forget, I sat in on a counseling session with him and a young man.

00:29:35.040 | This young man was about 25 years of age and in the previous counseling appointment, Bob

00:29:42.920 | had given him an assignment to go to his unsaved father and repent of some sins that he had

00:29:51.640 | done against his father.

00:29:54.880 | The young man was reluctant to do that, to say the least, because the unsaved father

00:30:04.440 | was a volcano.

00:30:06.840 | You never knew when he was going to go off.

00:30:13.920 | So the kid was somewhat intimidated by the father.

00:30:18.000 | But the kid was a Christian, and Bob admonished him, "Listen, you can do this because God

00:30:24.220 | will give you an enablement to do it.

00:30:26.160 | You need to go and confess this is a sin before your father, seek his forgiveness, and try

00:30:31.320 | to restore whatever relationship you have with your father, you need to do that."

00:30:37.960 | And the kid, "All right, all right."

00:30:40.160 | So they had prayer, finished the session, he went off.

00:30:42.960 | Week later, kid came back in, sat down, they had prayer, and first thing Bob says, "Well,

00:30:49.060 | how'd it go with your father?"

00:30:51.520 | The kid said, "Well, you know, I did most of my homework, but I didn't do that."

00:30:58.300 | And I remember I was sitting at the end of the table, and Bob was on, I was at one end

00:31:02.500 | of a long table, and Bob was on the one side, the kid was on the other side, and there was

00:31:07.860 | somebody else in our counseling class who was on the other end, and I'm sitting there

00:31:10.560 | taking notes, and there was this long silence.

00:31:14.700 | So I'm writing down in my notes, "effective long silence."

00:31:22.340 | And suddenly, Bob, if you've ever seen Bob Smith, he has a crew cut, looks like he just

00:31:29.260 | walked out of the Marines, stood up and slammed his hand down on the table and leaned across

00:31:40.720 | the table and said to the young man, "Young man, you are playing games with God, aren't

00:31:44.580 | you?"

00:31:46.300 | This young man was a pretty big guy, and I'm thinking, "Oh, my goodness, they're gonna

00:31:49.160 | get into a fight right here in the counseling room."

00:31:51.740 | And so I'm burying myself in the notes, I'm going, "If this is what counseling is, there's

00:31:55.500 | no way I'm ever gonna be a biblical counselor, there's no way I could ever do this."

00:32:00.140 | And that young man kind of looked up at him and stared at him for a moment and broke into

00:32:04.820 | tears, and he said, "Yeah," he says, "that's what I've been doing."

00:32:10.340 | He said, "Your problem is not with your father right now, your problem is with God, and you

00:32:14.140 | need to repent before God because you're not willing to do what God wants you to do.

00:32:18.820 | You need to go to your father."

00:32:19.820 | Spent the rest of the hour talking about that very thing.

00:32:22.500 | Bob even put himself in a role play where he, in a sense, became the kid's father, and

00:32:27.260 | he ran him through the worst possible scenario of how his father would respond and help him

00:32:31.420 | to understand how he needs to respond to his father.

00:32:35.280 | At the end of the session, that kid was full of all kinds of confidence.

00:32:39.240 | He went off, by the next appointment, he came back, and sure enough, he had gone to his

00:32:44.240 | father, confessed his sins, asked his father's forgiveness, and to his surprise, his father

00:32:48.640 | actually responded with a considerable amount of love.

00:32:52.000 | The kid was shocked, never seen his father react like that before, just in shock.

00:33:00.240 | And at that particular point, that kid became a great testimony for Christ in front of that

00:33:04.380 | father.

00:33:07.860 | But you know what?

00:33:08.860 | I thought to myself, after that was all over with, I thought, "You know what, John?

00:33:12.400 | You would have never loved that kid enough to admonish him."

00:33:18.360 | That kid needed an admonishment.

00:33:20.140 | He was just dragging his feet.

00:33:21.880 | I mean, he clearly understood what the Bible said about doing this.

00:33:26.300 | He needed to confess the sin before his father and seek his father's forgiveness, and even

00:33:32.440 | though his father is an unbeliever and his father will not truly be able to forgive him

00:33:37.140 | in a biblical sense, he still needed to do it, and I wouldn't have loved that kid enough

00:33:45.640 | to admonish him, but Bob did.

00:33:53.240 | So sometimes that encouragement comes in the form of some direct admonition, not in an

00:34:02.080 | unloving way.

00:34:03.080 | I'm not talking about being harsh, I'm not talking about being mean, I'm not talking

00:34:07.440 | about being hateful with your counselor, I'm not talking about that.

00:34:11.080 | I'm talking about communicating how serious you are about them following through and obeying

00:34:17.200 | what the Bible says.

00:34:20.040 | Sometimes I think we don't do that because we're not serious about it in our own life

00:34:26.680 | as counselors, but this is critical.

00:34:36.400 | This demonstrates a person who really wants to love their counselees in a biblical way.

00:34:51.280 | In fact, I'm going to ask you to grab your Bible just for a moment and let's go back

00:34:55.120 | to the book of Proverbs, and I want to go over to Proverbs chapter 24 and I'm interested

00:35:09.560 | in verse 23.

00:35:15.400 | These are the sayings of the wise, "To show partiality in judgment is not good."

00:35:21.160 | When you are partial to your counselee, you're pandering to their sinful ways.

00:35:36.040 | You're not really helping them.

00:35:40.800 | And a real counselor will not do that.

00:35:48.080 | They will not allow the counselee to walk away without being seriously encouraged to

00:35:57.640 | follow the truth.

00:36:00.040 | One other passage.

00:36:01.040 | Let's go over to Proverbs 27 and verse 5.

00:36:04.760 | "Better," Solomon says, "is open rebuke than love that is concealed.

00:36:11.160 | Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.

00:36:17.760 | You've become your counselee's worst enemy if all you do is try to kiss up to them and

00:36:22.200 | tell them things that you know that they want to hear."

00:36:28.960 | Now more often than not, when you hear encouragement used in counseling, you hear it from the standpoint

00:36:34.240 | of a psychologized self-esteem type of encouragement.

00:36:37.400 | "Well, encourage them to have self-confidence, to not feel inferior, da-da-da-da-da."

00:36:44.440 | And certainly, there are some people who need more confidence.

00:36:47.560 | Not so much in themselves, but confidence in God and trust in God and confidence in

00:36:51.240 | the Word of God in order to follow through.

00:36:54.320 | They need that.

00:36:57.160 | And you're the one who can give that to them.

00:36:59.940 | You can encourage them with that confidence, but you've got to be willing to rebuke them.

00:37:05.960 | Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed.

00:37:08.600 | In other words, this is love.

00:37:10.400 | You are showing love when you're encouraging your counselee to follow and obey God.

00:37:20.000 | Let's pick up where we left off there and in there in your notes, make plans and follow

00:37:25.720 | an agenda, but be ready to scrap it.

00:37:30.440 | Every counseling appointment you have, it's vitally important that you plan for it.

00:37:35.480 | You've heard that old saying, "People who fail to plan, plan to fail."

00:37:39.600 | Well, that's true.

00:37:44.040 | You got to have a plan.

00:37:45.040 | Where are you going to go in the next counseling appointment?

00:37:47.080 | In fact, sometimes when we're certifying people for counseling, we have an 11-question thing

00:37:52.840 | with each counseling session that they have, and at the end of it, the last question out

00:37:59.120 | of those 11 questions is, "What are your future plans for this counseling?"

00:38:03.080 | I want to see that enumerated.

00:38:05.520 | What are your plans?

00:38:06.520 | Where do you want to go with this?

00:38:07.520 | Now, you realize that God can interrupt those with a variety of different things, but at

00:38:11.960 | least you have a plan.

00:38:13.280 | You have something that you have thought through carefully, and you have a direction where

00:38:18.360 | you're going.

00:38:19.540 | You can see where the progress is taking place.

00:38:23.000 | You're not just meandering through counseling because that'll communicate to your counselee

00:38:27.760 | that there really is no hope and we're not getting anywhere when you don't have a good

00:38:35.040 | goal and direction.

00:38:36.040 | We already talked about that.

00:38:39.800 | But also, be appropriately open and use self-disclosure as well.

00:38:49.800 | Self-disclosure is...you've got to be careful with it because it can easily backfire on

00:38:58.640 | you.

00:38:59.640 | You don't want to glorify sin, but you can talk about the fact that maybe in your personal

00:39:03.720 | life God has helped you to overcome certain problems with the help of Scripture, and that's

00:39:10.720 | an encouragement to the counselee, but you don't want to spend a long time dealing with

00:39:14.840 | the sin because that's all they'll remember from that counseling session.

00:39:18.420 | We don't want them to remember your sin.

00:39:20.340 | We want them to remember the Word of God.

00:39:22.000 | That's what we want them to remember.

00:39:25.320 | So be appropriately open, use self-disclosure.

00:39:29.480 | Keep momentum up by open-ended questions, by stimulating them to analysis.

00:39:34.080 | Again, that stresses the importance of being open-ended in your questioning.

00:39:39.600 | Don't give the impression that you're in a hurry.

00:39:41.880 | Don't do that.

00:39:45.760 | Because that communicates a lack of real hope, or actually, it communicates to your counselee

00:39:53.560 | the fact that you really don't care, you just got to get them through this session.

00:39:59.280 | Yes?

00:40:00.280 | >> You probably had this maybe back in Ohio when you were preaching week after week.

00:40:01.280 | What do you do when people come up to you after service on Sunday morning and they dump

00:40:02.280 | the problems of the week on you, and you're kind of in a hurry because you want to talk

00:40:15.280 | with people, or there's a line, or whatever, do you just say, "Set up an appointment with

00:40:21.480 | me?"

00:40:22.480 | >> Yeah.

00:40:23.480 | Yeah.

00:40:24.480 | That's what I would do.

00:40:25.480 | His question really centered around if you're busy preaching week in and week out at a church,

00:40:30.600 | and at the end of a service, people come up to you and want to share a lot of their problems

00:40:36.080 | and want you to try to counsel them right after service.

00:40:40.200 | If it's something simple, I'll sit there, or I'll stand there and talk with them a little

00:40:43.720 | bit.

00:40:44.720 | Sometimes it's going to take a little bit more time.

00:40:46.280 | Sometimes I've asked people to step in the office where we could have a little bit more

00:40:50.840 | of confidentiality, and we'd sit down and talk about it.

00:40:55.760 | But if I see that this is going to be something that's going to be more lengthy, that they

00:41:00.640 | didn't get into this problem overnight and they're not going to get out of it overnight,

00:41:04.880 | then it's going to take more intensive work with this couple, then I'll say to them, "Listen,

00:41:08.440 | you need to call the secretary this weekend.

00:41:10.480 | Set up an appointment at some point when I'm open, and I'll love to sit down with you if

00:41:17.160 | it takes several weeks.

00:41:18.160 | It takes several weeks, and we'll work through this problem."

00:41:21.680 | But I don't want to give them simplistic, hurried answers in order to just kind of satisfy

00:41:31.440 | them temporarily and let them go.

00:41:33.040 | I want to really get at the hard issues, and that's going to take some work.

00:41:39.160 | By the way, that's one of the reasons why a lot of pastors don't do counseling, because

00:41:42.360 | they realize the work it's going to take, and they're not willing to make that kind

00:41:46.160 | of investment in people's lives.

00:41:51.520 | And so they'll use all kinds of excuses.

00:41:53.160 | They'll say, "Well, I'm not a counselor."

00:41:54.840 | Well, if you're going to be like your savior, then you're going to have to be, because he's

00:42:02.440 | called Wonderful Counselor, the Prince of Peace.

00:42:05.600 | If you're going to be like him, you're going to be this way.

00:42:09.360 | If you're going to be a shepherd, you've got to be this way.

00:42:14.440 | So you've got to be willing to spend time with people and not just give them quick,

00:42:20.480 | pat answers.

00:42:23.840 | So don't give them an impression you're in a hurry.

00:42:25.880 | Be appropriately authoritative and directive.

00:42:30.400 | And I love that little passage there in Titus 2:15.

00:42:33.600 | It's kind of tucked in there in Titus, and you have a tendency to think that Timothy

00:42:40.000 | was the only one who struggled with timidity, but he's not.

00:42:46.240 | Titus struggled with the same thing.

00:42:49.960 | Chapter 2 and verse 15 says, "Paul admonishes this young pastor, 'These things speak and

00:42:56.000 | exhort and reprove with all authority.

00:42:59.720 | Let no one disregard you.'"

00:43:02.680 | And the word authority is the word command.

00:43:07.480 | Take these things and command people to follow them.

00:43:11.080 | Now, we don't like that word in our culture and society today, but it's a good word, to

00:43:16.400 | command.

00:43:19.080 | Command people to follow them.

00:43:20.800 | You've got to follow this because this is what God says.

00:43:24.200 | Now, again, we're not harsh.

00:43:27.440 | We're not mean.

00:43:29.280 | We're not hateful when we say that.

00:43:32.040 | But we certainly communicate that we expect them to obey God.

00:43:37.240 | We want them to follow through with the Scripture.

00:43:40.440 | So be appropriately authoritative and directive.

00:43:46.000 | And then, last of all in this section, allow yourself to identify with and personally experience

00:43:50.320 | their pain.

00:43:52.920 | That Romans 12, 15 thing, this is what Jesus did.

00:43:56.760 | Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 15, "He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses."

00:44:03.920 | And this is an ongoing sympathy.

00:44:06.500 | You look at the tense of the verb there, this is something where he is continually able

00:44:12.120 | to sympathize with our weaknesses and with our struggles.

00:44:16.120 | He's able to continually do that.

00:44:19.240 | So all of that has got to be a part of your instructional skills in working with marriages.

00:44:29.320 | Which now brings us to after and between the sessions.

00:44:32.600 | After and between the sessions, pray for your counselee.

00:44:35.800 | Paul's prayer is a good example of that in Philippians chapter 1, verses 9 through 11.

00:44:41.360 | Pray for them.

00:44:44.720 | And you've got to be careful because our human desires to see them relieved from their

00:44:52.080 | problems or their pain can easily infiltrate our prayers in a sinful way.

00:44:59.680 | And we can begin to pray, "Oh Lord, get them out of this problem.

00:45:02.960 | Help them to resolve."

00:45:03.960 | No, no, no.

00:45:04.960 | That's a bad prayer.

00:45:06.660 | God has them in this problem for a reason.

00:45:10.280 | So a better prayer is, "Lord, teach them everything they will need to know as a result

00:45:17.760 | of the problems that they're facing in their marriage or in their home or with their children

00:45:24.280 | so that they can grow appropriately in Christ.

00:45:27.880 | Teach them everything they need to know."

00:45:31.240 | Oftentimes we have a tendency to want to pray for victory.

00:45:34.640 | And I understand what people are saying when they want to pray for victory, but I don't

00:45:37.560 | like that kind of a prayer because to most Christians that implies total escape from

00:45:44.360 | my problems.

00:45:45.720 | Victory means total escape from it.

00:45:47.760 | When the problems are really God's tool of sanctifying us.

00:45:52.920 | We shouldn't pray for victory, we should pray for faithfulness.

00:45:57.880 | We need to pray that they are going to be faithful as they face these problems.

00:46:02.920 | These problems may be serious disagreements between a husband and wife or a serious problem

00:46:07.520 | with their children and it's not going to be solved overnight.

00:46:11.840 | And God has a lot for them to learn through these.

00:46:15.080 | So pray for your counselee.

00:46:18.960 | After and between sessions you also need to add important details to your notes.

00:46:24.200 | Things that come to your mind.

00:46:25.800 | I used to love to counsel with two observers in the counseling room.

00:46:30.660 | Sometimes there would be as many as six people in the counseling room.

00:46:35.240 | It would be myself as a counselor, the husband and a wife, and if that husband and wife came

00:46:40.360 | in front of the church we would never counsel them from another church unless they brought

00:46:44.120 | a leader from the church, a pastor or a deacon or elder with them because our goal was to

00:46:51.680 | turn them back underneath the ministry of that church and that church needed to know

00:46:54.360 | how to shepherd them.

00:46:56.560 | And by the way that's how we build our counseling training course because those leaders that

00:46:59.600 | came in to observe the counseling said, "Hey, where did you learn how to do this?"

00:47:03.080 | I'd say, "Well, we taught our counseling course.

00:47:05.200 | You can come and learn how to do that," and then they'd take our counseling course.

00:47:10.800 | So there would be the husband and wife and there would be the person from their church

00:47:13.680 | and then there would be two observers that would be sitting in the back.

00:47:16.280 | They'd be taking notes.

00:47:17.800 | So after the counseling session was all over with we'd have a debriefing time with the

00:47:21.960 | observers.

00:47:23.360 | And sometimes those observers would pick up on things that I'd totally miss.

00:47:27.920 | Maybe my mind was somewhere else or I was looking down at my notes or I was looking

00:47:31.640 | up something in the Bible and they'd say to me, "By the way, did you see the way that

00:47:35.880 | she looked at him?"

00:47:37.440 | I'm going, "No."

00:47:39.440 | "What did she do?"

00:47:41.400 | "Well, when you made this statement, did you see the scowl that she gave him?"

00:47:46.280 | "No."

00:47:47.280 | "No, I missed that.

00:47:49.640 | What do you think?

00:47:50.640 | Why did she do that?"

00:47:51.640 | Well, then they'd give me within context what they think and I'd go, "Oh wow, that's very

00:47:55.960 | good.

00:47:56.960 | I totally missed that.

00:47:57.960 | So I add this to my notes."

00:47:59.240 | Those are the kind of things that you end up adding later on in between the sessions

00:48:03.680 | as you remember them and it helps you to go back and it helps you to piece these things

00:48:10.280 | together.

00:48:11.960 | It's hard to get everything that's coming at you in a counseling session, but you need

00:48:16.760 | to be observant as possible with your counselees and try to write down stuff that you know

00:48:24.120 | you're going to forget if you don't write it down and then review those notes.

00:48:29.320 | D, mentally review the session and prepare for the next one.

00:48:34.440 | What happened in our last session?

00:48:37.080 | Now, I'm also supervising another counselor in training right now and this guy is counseling

00:48:46.120 | a man who has limited schooling, limited background.

00:48:51.760 | He's kind of slow and because of that, the progress in counseling is going to be considerably

00:49:00.440 | slower.

00:49:01.440 | He doesn't read real well and so I said, "Okay, listen.

00:49:05.920 | Every counseling appointment, when you get somebody like this, every counseling appointment,

00:49:10.960 | you've got to review, review, review, review.

00:49:15.540 | If you have an hour with this guy, a half hour of that counseling appointment is spent

00:49:19.640 | in reviewing.

00:49:22.520 | You say to him, "Remember our first appointment where we went over this and this and this?

00:49:26.840 | You remember that?

00:49:27.840 | Oh, yeah.

00:49:28.840 | Yeah.

00:49:29.840 | All right.

00:49:30.840 | Now, we build on that in the second counseling appointment and then we talked about this

00:49:34.880 | and this and this and this and this.

00:49:38.200 | You understand the reason why we talked about that and you remember what we talked about

00:49:41.160 | from the...

00:49:42.160 | Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:49:43.160 | Well, grab your Bible.

00:49:44.160 | Let's go back there again and we review and we go back, review.

00:49:47.600 | Every counseling, when you get a counseling like that, it's a little bit slower, maybe

00:49:50.640 | doesn't have the educational background, is slowly picking up on things, then you need

00:49:56.520 | to do lots of review.

00:50:00.160 | So you need to do the same thing between counseling sessions.

00:50:05.360 | You need to mentally review the session and prepare for the next one so that you can pick

00:50:11.000 | up right where you left off so you know where you're going.

00:50:17.400 | When they contact you, you need to return phone calls as soon as possible, emails, text

00:50:22.160 | messages, same thing, consult, do research.

00:50:25.280 | I mean, there are many times when I've had counseling situations that were real sticky

00:50:30.040 | wickets in marriage and family and I've not known where to go.

00:50:33.520 | I'm going, "Man, I am really confused.

00:50:35.200 | I'm really lost in the details of this."

00:50:37.520 | So I call a good friend of mine who is a good pastor or good counselor, I'd say, "Listen,

00:50:43.520 | I got to bounce something off of you.

00:50:44.760 | Tell me what you think.

00:50:45.760 | Have you ever had anything like this?"

00:50:47.800 | And so I'd review the whole thing and he'd say to me, "Oh, yeah, you know, I had some."

00:50:51.840 | I said, "Well, what did you do?

00:50:52.840 | How did you handle that?"

00:50:53.840 | "Well, I handled it this way.

00:50:55.360 | I took them over in Scripture to this particular passage and I helped them to understand this

00:50:59.200 | and that and the other thing, and I'm going, 'Oh, this is great.

00:51:01.200 | This is great.

00:51:02.200 | Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:51:03.200 | That's what I need to do.'"

00:51:04.200 | So I'm writing down these things.

00:51:05.200 | So I'm consulting people who I trust, who is committed with the Word of God and handles

00:51:09.360 | it well, and they'll give me ideas and perspectives that I never had before.

00:51:13.840 | That's a good thing to do.

00:51:14.840 | You can do that after and between your counseling sessions.

00:51:19.360 | I mean, you know how many emails I get.

00:51:21.240 | I've been doing this training for many, many years now from former students around the

00:51:26.460 | world every week, and they'll ask questions about this or that, and the questions are

00:51:34.080 | very simple.

00:51:35.080 | They're only two or three lines, but it would take sometimes a doctoral dissertation to

00:51:38.300 | answer them.

00:51:40.640 | And I mean, I'd be writing forever, and I'll usually say to them, "Listen, your question

00:51:45.640 | implies, in order to answer this adequately, I'd have to write a dissertation.

00:51:49.320 | I don't have that kind of time.

00:51:50.600 | I'm going to give you the short answer and give you some sources that you can check on

00:51:54.120 | and you can do the rest of the work."

00:51:55.760 | So da, da, da, da, da.

00:51:56.760 | Here's the direction you need to go.

00:51:58.280 | There's the passage you need to deal with, and here's some of the books that will help

00:52:00.680 | you with that.

00:52:03.680 | Blessings.

00:52:05.680 | All right?

00:52:06.680 | So otherwise, all I do, I wouldn't have time to teach or do anything else.

00:52:10.600 | I'd just be answering e-mails.

00:52:12.760 | Right now, I'm 185 e-mails behind, all right, in my, in e-mailing.

00:52:18.640 | Yeah, that's right.

00:52:20.680 | Well, your assignment should, half of them should be back in the mail now to you.

00:52:26.360 | So they're half-graded.

00:52:27.360 | So not all of them are, but they're half-graded.

00:52:31.640 | So all right, then let's talk about analyze and assess.

00:52:38.200 | This is part of the inventory and interpretation, which is part of the phases of the eight I's

00:52:41.640 | that we talked about earlier.

00:52:44.040 | Analyze and assess.

00:52:45.040 | How do we do that?

00:52:47.000 | A good counselor will spend time carefully going over the data that they have collected.

00:52:57.560 | This is what we often refer to as the interpretational phrase, phase of counseling.

00:53:04.200 | You go over the data that you've collected.

00:53:08.240 | For example, frequently, we'll use a PDI, which is called a personal data inventory.

00:53:13.880 | Originally, this was created years ago.

00:53:16.400 | Jay Adams and some of the people there at CCF created it, and it's in the back of his

00:53:20.000 | book, Competent to Counsel, or you can get it in the back of the Theology of Christian

00:53:25.480 | Counseling.

00:53:27.360 | That's kind of a basic one.

00:53:28.600 | A lot of the PDIs with a lot of people have kind of evolved over the years, but it asks

00:53:35.360 | just a lot of basic background questions that helps you to get at a lot of data real quickly.

00:53:40.760 | And then there's usually a pink sheet that's attached to that PDI that has four basic questions

00:53:45.840 | on it.

00:53:47.360 | Number one, why have you come to counseling?

00:53:51.320 | What's the problem?

00:53:53.480 | Number two, what have you done about that problem so far?

00:53:56.380 | What have you done about this problem?

00:53:57.380 | Well, I've read some books or I've talked with someone else or I've seen another counselor

00:54:01.720 | or I've watched a video or, you know, whatever.

00:54:06.560 | This is what they've done about the problem.

00:54:08.320 | The third question they have on that little pink sheet is, what do you expect us to do

00:54:14.600 | about the problem?

00:54:15.880 | Which tells you their expectations.

00:54:19.720 | What do you expect us to do about it?

00:54:22.480 | And then the last question has to do with, is there any other information that you can

00:54:28.140 | share with us that would help us understand what's going on?

00:54:33.460 | A lot of that has to do with background information to help us have perspective on their particular

00:54:40.140 | problem.

00:54:42.060 | So that's usually on the little pink sheet, okay, on the PDI.

00:54:47.220 | So you have a personal data inventory and before a person comes in, now if I know somebody

00:54:54.020 | from my church really well, I don't have them fill out a PDI.

00:55:00.620 | But if I don't know them really well and they're still a member of my church, then I'll have

00:55:06.100 | them fill it out.

00:55:07.180 | Because I want to try to get to know them the best I can.

00:55:11.380 | Then pay attention to communication relationship dynamics.

00:55:15.540 | Here's some examples of dynamics to observe.

00:55:18.580 | Who sits where?

00:55:19.900 | Boy, that's a key thing.

00:55:22.360 | Who sits where?

00:55:25.460 | You know, oftentimes I'll have, if you were to go to my office, I have a desk there, on

00:55:32.100 | the other side of the desk are two chairs and they're lined up facing me on the other

00:55:38.180 | side of the desk.

00:55:39.740 | And a husband and wife will come in for counseling and they'll be so irritated with each other

00:55:44.580 | that when they sit down, they actually turn their chairs so that their backs are facing

00:55:49.600 | each other.

00:55:51.900 | You go, whoa, look at this, all right.

00:55:56.780 | He's looking out there, she's looking out there and they usually start off with, will

00:56:01.900 | you tell her, will you tell him, type of thing.

00:56:08.120 | So the animosity is so thick you can cut it with a knife in that counseling room.

00:56:17.120 | Who sits where?

00:56:19.760 | How do they sit?

00:56:21.000 | Some are very aggressive and attactive and they'll actually turn their chairs towards

00:56:25.360 | their spouse to stare them in the eye.

00:56:29.540 | So they're very aggressive.

00:56:33.640 | How do people interact?

00:56:37.160 | How do people interact?

00:56:44.760 | Is one quiet and the other one talkative?

00:56:53.080 | Is one of them constantly making excuses for their behavior?

00:57:02.120 | Well, I did this, but you've got to understand the reason why I did this was because he or

00:57:06.480 | she, they're constantly making excuses, implied accusations, how do they interact?

00:57:17.280 | Is one person constantly explaining what the other person's saying?

00:57:20.400 | Well, what she means by that is, don't you just love it when somebody does that?

00:57:26.700 | What he means by that is, and you see the spouse go, what are you doing?

00:57:33.480 | I said what I mean.

00:57:34.920 | I don't need for you to explain this to the counselor.

00:57:38.880 | Or who withdraws?

00:57:39.880 | Who retreats?

00:57:40.880 | Who pushes?

00:57:41.880 | Who coerces?

00:57:42.880 | Who's trying to be manipulative?

00:57:49.080 | Or who is ignored?

00:57:54.040 | Someone ignored?

00:57:55.880 | Maybe it's a kid.

00:57:57.600 | Maybe it's a parent who's ignored in the counseling.

00:58:04.660 | Who talks the most and who initiates conversations?

00:58:09.840 | Who talks most and who initiates?

00:58:12.240 | I just love it when you ask a question of one spouse and the other spouse immediately

00:58:16.320 | jumps in and answers it.

00:58:19.160 | That tells me a lot about how this marriage really functions.

00:58:22.320 | If they're willing to do that now, here in front of me, where they're trying to put on

00:58:26.520 | their best behavior, you can imagine this is 10 times worse at home.

00:58:34.140 | One person answers for the other person.

00:58:40.840 | Who interprets?

00:58:42.880 | Who clarifies?

00:58:43.960 | Who corrects?

00:58:47.260 | Well let me explain what he's trying to say, she'll say.

00:58:54.880 | Who does that?

00:58:55.880 | Who speaks for other people?

00:59:06.940 | Back several years ago, I had a couple come in for counseling and the presentation problem

00:59:10.860 | was that the husband doesn't communicate, he doesn't communicate, okay, face value.

00:59:21.140 | Before the end of the first session, I knew immediately why he didn't communicate because

00:59:25.420 | every time he attempted to talk in the counseling session, his wife would always put him down.

00:59:38.300 | Well that's stupid, she would say.

00:59:42.500 | He doesn't know what he's talking about.

00:59:45.900 | You got to understand, that's his perspective, she'd say to me.

00:59:51.740 | Now, every time he opened his mouth, he's put down, then he's not going to say anything.

00:59:57.060 | Every time he tried to communicate something, she immediately shut him down, immediately

01:00:03.380 | shut him down.

01:00:04.940 | And now she's complaining that he doesn't communicate.

01:00:08.420 | Well, she's let him know, in no uncertain terms, that what he has to communicate is

01:00:14.940 | not valuable, it's not important.

01:00:19.700 | She doesn't care what he says.

01:00:25.180 | It's only her opinion that matters in this situation.

01:00:28.960 | So he just stopped talking.

01:00:31.860 | Now he had his own problems, I don't mean to paint a picture as if she's all wrong and

01:00:36.880 | he's all right, no, no, no, that's not it.

01:00:39.700 | But before the end of the first session, it was painfully clear what was going on in that

01:00:42.820 | marriage and how I needed to work with that particular wife.

01:00:51.660 | How are disagreements handled?

01:00:55.460 | Couples fall into certain ruts and patterns on handling things.

01:01:01.220 | Some couples like to sweep things under the rug and eventually so much stuff is piled

01:01:05.900 | up underneath, they end up tripping over it, but it's swept underneath the rug.

01:01:10.360 | Other couples yell and scream at each other and vent all their emotions.

01:01:18.380 | It doesn't solve the problem.

01:01:20.660 | It just vents all of their deep emotional issues and the problem is still there.

01:01:32.480 | They feel better because they've vented, but now everybody is hurt because they've said

01:01:37.380 | mean hateful things to one another.

01:01:40.300 | God dishonoring things.

01:01:45.020 | Some couples deny that there is a problem when there is.

01:01:50.940 | They'll deny, oh, we don't have a problem.

01:01:55.460 | There's no problem there.

01:01:58.660 | Everything's fine.

01:02:00.580 | Or you'll get a husband or a wife who will do that.

01:02:03.700 | There's nothing wrong with a marriage.

01:02:06.540 | Usually, by the way, it's the husbands who do that.

01:02:11.460 | Now occasionally you'll get a wife to do it, but usually the husband, ah, everything's

01:02:15.140 | fine in a marriage, no problem.

01:02:17.300 | The wife is sitting there, no, there's problems.

01:02:25.580 | I was just talking in the pastoral counseling class the last hour about a Methodist pastor

01:02:33.740 | and his wife who came to me for counseling.

01:02:35.780 | They were having some fairly serious marital problems.

01:02:43.140 | During one of the counseling sessions, he looked at me in all seriousness and he said

01:02:47.460 | to me, "I don't sin anymore.

01:02:54.500 | I make mistakes and sometimes I do things in ignorance, but I don't sin."

01:03:06.900 | Well it dawned on me, this guy believes in this Methodist theology.

01:03:12.500 | It's a Wesleyan theology that says that once a person's saved, they kind of live the Christian

01:03:17.100 | life until they receive the second blessing and that catapults them to a level where they

01:03:20.740 | no longer sin any longer.

01:03:22.500 | They can make mistakes, but they don't sin any longer.

01:03:25.980 | And it's so funny because I can still, it's like they're sitting in front of me today.

01:03:31.460 | I can still see his wife's expression when he said, "I don't sin."

01:03:37.300 | She went like this.

01:03:43.300 | Her non-verbals were screaming at me, all right, like, "This guy is unbelievable."

01:03:50.820 | Of course, I took him over to 1 John 1 where it talks about if we say that we have no sin,

01:03:58.460 | then we make him out to be a liar.

01:04:04.540 | That's what you're saying.

01:04:05.540 | You don't have any sin.

01:04:08.340 | You supposedly have received the second act of grace where you don't, all you do is make

01:04:12.980 | mistakes.

01:04:13.980 | You don't sin anymore.

01:04:15.520 | So you're saying basically your wife is totally responsible for all these marital problems

01:04:19.620 | because she's the only one that's sinned.

01:04:21.700 | She's the only one who hasn't received this second act of grace.

01:04:24.860 | Boy, that's convenient.

01:04:28.340 | That theology will drive a major wedge between a husband and wife.

01:04:34.860 | That'll destroy a marriage.

01:04:37.780 | How are disagreements handled?

01:04:39.900 | This guy basically is saying, "There's no problem on my part.

01:04:43.980 | It's all her problem because she hasn't received the second act of grace."

01:04:53.580 | So furthermore, does someone have to have the last word?

01:04:58.660 | Does someone have to have the last word?

01:05:02.060 | There are some couples that do that.

01:05:06.300 | They've just got to have their opinion out there on the table as the last word no matter

01:05:11.620 | what when a problem arises.

01:05:17.180 | Who's really in charge?

01:05:18.180 | Another way to ask that question, who wears the pants in the family?

01:05:25.420 | Who is really in charge of the home?

01:05:31.260 | Now that's a ridiculous question if you believe in egalitarianism, then you're both in charge.

01:05:39.020 | If you believe in egalitarianism, then it's like a plane that has two pilots.

01:05:43.060 | Not a pilot and co-pilot, but two pilots.

01:05:45.900 | That's the way a lot of marriages function today under an egalitarian view.

01:05:51.820 | Mom and dad are struggling for the control of the plane.

01:05:54.620 | So the plane is going like this because she wants it to go one direction and he wants

01:05:59.140 | it to go another direction and so the plane is all over the place and the kids are in

01:06:01.980 | the back being bounced off the ceiling.

01:06:05.900 | That's the picture of a lot of homes.

01:06:10.900 | Who's in charge?

01:06:12.820 | Are there subtle or overt power struggles going on in the home?

01:06:20.860 | Some of them are very subtle power struggles.

01:06:27.220 | Who has the most clout in the home?

01:06:34.020 | How does the controlling person maintain control?

01:06:36.840 | What do they do?

01:06:41.860 | Is it with the checkbook?

01:06:46.700 | Is it through sexuality?

01:06:52.460 | Is it through threats?

01:06:54.580 | They'll tell somebody, they'll tell the pastor, they'll tell the relatives.

01:07:04.100 | How do they maintain control?

01:07:06.220 | What's going on?

01:07:07.220 | How do they do that?

01:07:10.820 | What's happening there?

01:07:12.340 | Do they maintain control, this is a very common way, by threatening to leave?

01:07:20.620 | There's always that threat on the table, I'll leave you if you do that, then you're going

01:07:28.220 | to find me out of here.

01:07:31.340 | That's their way of maintaining control.

01:07:36.020 | Very coercive, very manipulative.

01:07:40.880 | When tense issues arise, how does each person react to those problems?

01:07:46.420 | How do they deal with it?

01:07:47.660 | Who seems most concerned or upset when a problem arises?

01:07:51.740 | Who does or doesn't pay attention when someone speaks?

01:07:59.300 | Do they ignore each other?

01:08:00.380 | Do they listen past each other?

01:08:03.780 | It's very easy to do, you know.

01:08:06.780 | A husband and wife have been married for several years, sometimes will listen past each other.

01:08:12.700 | They anticipate what their spouse is going to say because they lived with them so long,

01:08:16.020 | they really think they have a pretty good idea.

01:08:21.100 | Who does or doesn't pay attention when somebody speaks?

01:08:23.420 | Do they really hear words or meanings?

01:08:25.340 | Do they understand each other?

01:08:32.340 | And sometimes a husband or wife will read meanings into words that were not intended,

01:08:38.500 | which just makes the problem worse.

01:08:44.540 | They will imply meanings or motivations behind words that were never intended.

01:08:53.620 | Do some issues get sidetracked?

01:08:55.180 | How do they get sidetracked?

01:08:56.700 | Whose issues get sidetracked?

01:09:00.380 | And what roles do each of the family members have?

01:09:04.780 | Are they biblical roles in the family and in the relationship?

01:09:24.500 | All of these issues are important at getting the right kind of data and interpreting it.

01:09:40.900 | I think a good counselor who is somewhat like Sherlock Holmes, he's always asking or she's

01:09:48.780 | always asking lots of questions, maybe not to the counselee, but to themselves.

01:09:57.580 | What about this?

01:09:58.580 | What about this?

01:09:59.580 | What about that?

01:10:00.620 | Every time I review the notes that I've taken in counseling, I'm always asking myself a

01:10:05.580 | lot of questions.

01:10:09.100 | Why did they say that and why did they say that that way?

01:10:14.540 | What could they have said that would have been better at this particular point?

01:10:19.420 | What's going on in their mind, in their thinking, in their desires, in their expectations that

01:10:24.440 | would cause them to react the way that they did?

01:10:29.940 | To the point where you really get to know your counselee and you can anticipate what

01:10:37.380 | they're going to do in a certain situation.

01:10:42.780 | They may not like you as a counselor, but you can actually say to them, "You know what?

01:10:50.380 | I'll bet if this happened, this is the way in which you would respond to it," and they

01:10:54.060 | say, "You're right.

01:10:58.700 | That's exactly it.

01:10:59.700 | How did you know that?

01:11:02.740 | In fact, that happened before," they'll say, "and this is the way I responded."

01:11:10.580 | How do you know that because you've asked yourself a lot of questions, you've in a sense

01:11:13.700 | crawled into their mind, and you're looking at life through their eyes, their perspective.

01:11:22.100 | Everything they do and everything they say speaks to their perspective of life and their

01:11:30.460 | view of their marriage.

01:11:34.020 | Everything they do and everything they say reveals what they think about life and their

01:11:39.780 | marriage.

01:11:46.780 | Ask appropriate questions and listen very carefully, not just to what they say, but

01:11:51.900 | how they say it.

01:11:56.780 | Here's some questions from a problem-centered approach.

01:11:58.900 | These are great questions.

01:11:59.900 | In fact, I'll use these frequently.

01:12:03.460 | As you see it, what are some of the problems hindering your marriage and family relationships?

01:12:07.900 | What do you see as ways that you have contributed to the problems in the marriage or family?

01:12:15.740 | That's a very open-ended question, isn't it?

01:12:17.980 | Boy, they can bring in anything, anything.

01:12:25.020 | What are some of the problems hindering your marriage or family relationships?

01:12:28.860 | Usually they're going to talk about the things that most concern them first.

01:12:34.520 | Now, how have you contributed to those problems?

01:12:41.180 | Now, that's a little bit tougher, because the Bible tells us that we always view the

01:12:47.180 | past in such self-favoring ways.

01:12:51.580 | Grab your Bible just for a moment and go over to Proverbs 16 in verse 2.

01:12:57.900 | All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, but the Lord weighs the motives.

01:13:03.300 | A very similar statement is made in Proverbs 21 in verse 2.

01:13:09.440 | Every man's way is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.

01:13:14.540 | Now, you're not in marriage and family counseling very long before you realize that people look

01:13:23.180 | at the past in such self-justifying ways.

01:13:27.620 | They can go into great detail and talk about, in technicolor, all the wrongs that their

01:13:33.740 | spouse or other people in the family have done against them.

01:13:36.460 | They can do that.

01:13:38.380 | But then when you ask them the question, "What have you done that was wrong in the past?

01:13:44.520 | How did you contribute to these problems?"

01:13:47.300 | All of a sudden they get a glazed look in their eye, and they kind of stare off, and

01:13:50.820 | they say, "Well, you know, I know I didn't always respond the right way, but you don't

01:13:56.500 | understand what they did to me," and all of a sudden we're right back into that mode.

01:14:03.020 | So we always see ourselves in a victim role.

01:14:08.780 | I have been victimized by my wife.

01:14:10.820 | I have been victimized by my husband.

01:14:13.020 | I have been victimized by my children.

01:14:15.900 | I have been victimized by my parents.

01:14:19.220 | I have been victimized by -- you fill in the blank.

01:14:25.380 | That's the way that they view things.

01:14:27.700 | So you're trying to get them to open up and own responsibility for their own feelings

01:14:32.460 | and action in the past.

01:14:34.900 | The number two, what do you see as things that you'd like to change in your relationship

01:14:39.300 | or in yourself?

01:14:40.980 | And again, we started off about in the relationship, and, you know, that particular question will

01:14:48.380 | easily get twisted into, "What are the things that I'd like to see changed in my husband

01:14:52.660 | or my wife?"

01:14:55.540 | That's what usually happens.

01:14:57.100 | "What do I want to see changed in him or her?"

01:15:02.940 | Well, that's the wrong reason for coming to counseling.

01:15:06.740 | Wrong agenda.

01:15:07.740 | No, no, no.

01:15:08.860 | You can't change him or her.

01:15:10.540 | In fact, you know what, sometimes I'll say to them, "Now, how long have you guys been

01:15:15.260 | married?"

01:15:16.260 | "Well, we've been married for 15 years," they'll say.

01:15:19.460 | "Have you been trying to change your spouse over these 15 years?"

01:15:23.300 | "Oh, yes.

01:15:24.300 | Yeah, absolutely.

01:15:25.300 | Oh, yeah."

01:15:26.300 | "This is what you really wanted for them to change, isn't it?"

01:15:28.540 | "Oh, yes.

01:15:29.540 | Uh-huh.

01:15:30.540 | That's exactly right."

01:15:31.540 | "Have you been successful over these 15 years?"

01:15:33.460 | "No.

01:15:34.460 | No.

01:15:35.460 | Are you kidding me?

01:15:36.460 | Not a bit successful."

01:15:37.460 | "Well, then," I say to them, "Don't expect me to be successful on that either."

01:15:44.460 | I'm not going to.

01:15:45.460 | You've tried this for 15 years, and you can't do it, right?

01:15:47.900 | So I can't do it.

01:15:49.020 | But we can do one thing.

01:15:50.620 | We can change you.

01:15:54.060 | And you've got to be willing to change.

01:15:57.260 | So are you ready to change?

01:15:59.900 | Well, now that's the right agenda for coming to counseling.

01:16:05.260 | I've got to come to counseling to help me learn how to be a better husband, a better

01:16:11.620 | wife, a better mother, a better father, a better child, a better parent.

01:16:22.620 | That's why I'm coming to counseling.

01:16:26.480 | My coming to counseling is not to get my husband, wife, or my children to change or my parents

01:16:31.620 | to change.

01:16:32.700 | That's not my reason for coming to counseling.

01:16:37.980 | So what things do you see you'd like to change in your relationship?

01:16:44.660 | And don't forget to add in yourself.

01:16:49.020 | Number three, if you could change anything that you did and said, what would it be?

01:16:52.900 | Do you have any regrets that are a part of your past?

01:16:58.860 | Things that you remember that you did that were wrong, words that you said, deeds and

01:17:06.220 | actions you performed that were wrong, hurtful, mean, that constituted a lie?

01:17:24.340 | What is it?

01:17:25.620 | If you could change anything that you did or you said, what would it be?

01:17:32.700 | Get them to open up about it.

01:17:34.060 | Now they're usually really detailed about what they want their spouse to change.

01:17:41.220 | They know that.

01:17:42.220 | I mean, they can give you a doctoral dissertation on that one.

01:17:47.060 | Boy, it's really hard for them to list.

01:17:53.220 | In fact, that's a good homework assignment.

01:17:54.480 | I'm going to send it home.

01:17:55.660 | I want you to list 20 things you'd like to make right about your past with your spouse.

01:18:05.700 | 20 things.

01:18:08.140 | That is so hard.

01:18:10.780 | Man, if they make it past three, they're really doing great.

01:18:21.020 | You could change anything.

01:18:22.860 | Number four, when you got married, what expectations did you have for marriage?

01:18:29.100 | This is to tell you what they were really hoping for.

01:18:33.060 | What were your spouse's expectations, which were fulfilled?

01:18:36.980 | How did you make your expectations known to your spouse?

01:18:39.780 | What effect could unfulfilled expectations have on your marriage?

01:18:45.460 | Most couples, they'll talk with you prior to marriage, "Oh, we have the best communication.

01:18:54.340 | He understands me.

01:18:57.700 | She really knows me.

01:18:59.420 | We really love each other."

01:19:03.500 | After marriage, "That man doesn't understand me.

01:19:10.620 | He doesn't know me.

01:19:14.100 | She ignores me."

01:19:20.380 | What effect could unfulfilled expectations have on your marriage?

01:19:23.340 | Most couples have not talked about their expectations, or they've not been genuine about them.

01:19:33.140 | For one reason or another, they've not really laid all their cards on the table, so to speak,

01:19:38.300 | but they have certain very definite expectations.

01:19:41.100 | They've not told their spouse about them, they're hidden, and they're just waiting.

01:19:46.640 | I don't know whether they're afraid that if they tell them, then their spouse will just

01:19:49.620 | do it in order to please them, and it won't be genuine.

01:19:53.660 | There are all kinds of excuses that could go one way or another here or there.

01:19:58.440 | But they've not been very open about their expectations.

01:20:02.460 | If I were to ask you to list your spouse's expectations when they came into marriage

01:20:08.800 | with you, what would you say?

01:20:13.500 | What were their expectations?

01:20:17.820 | They want to get married and have kids.

01:20:20.340 | I guess that's it.

01:20:22.860 | Oh, that we go to church together, and we study the Bible, and we make enough money

01:20:28.840 | to live, and beyond that, I don't know.

01:20:37.740 | Wow, those are all performance things.

01:20:43.880 | My bet is that your spouse expected you to love you, or for you to love them with lots

01:20:54.220 | and lots of mercy and grace.

01:21:01.180 | Lots and lots of mercy.

01:21:02.180 | Now, they maybe didn't say that, but that was their expectation.

01:21:08.980 | Which gets us over to Matthew 7, 1 through 5 issue.

01:21:13.380 | Don't judge unless you be judged.

01:21:15.820 | Why as you go around trying to pick the speck out of your brother's eye, when all along

01:21:19.140 | you have a log hanging out of your eye, listen to the hyperbole of Jesus in that.

01:21:25.780 | Imagine people walking around with logs hanging out of their eye.

01:21:28.980 | That's hyperbole.

01:21:29.980 | The word speck there in the Greek is the word that actually, I think, it's very hard to

01:21:35.340 | track down, but I actually think it means, sometimes it's translated splinter, but that's

01:21:40.340 | a bad translation.

01:21:43.020 | It means like a floaty.

01:21:44.500 | Have you ever gotten a piece of dust in your eye and been able to see it float across your

01:21:49.220 | eye?

01:21:50.220 | What if I came to you and I said, "Hey, listen, I want to pick that little floaty out of your

01:21:53.540 | eye."

01:21:54.540 | "Hold on just a second, Stephen.

01:21:55.540 | Let me get that thing."

01:21:56.540 | You'd say, "Whoa, get away from me."

01:21:58.260 | All along I've got this log hanging out of my eye, all right?

01:22:02.180 | You'd say, "What is this guy, nuts?"

01:22:06.080 | You'd get rid of the log in your own eye.

01:22:07.540 | In other words, we're really great at defining what other people need to do in a very refined

01:22:14.940 | way, but we're very, very generous with our own selves.

01:22:18.900 | And Jesus says, "Don't judge others with a standard that you first don't use upon yourself.

01:22:27.220 | Then you can judge other people."

01:22:28.220 | In other words, you use a more refined judgment upon yourself than you do on other people,

01:22:36.860 | and then you're qualified to judge.

01:22:41.700 | So ask appropriate questions.

01:22:43.340 | Listen for them carefully.

01:22:46.260 | As you consider marriage, what is your degree of commitment or your spouse's degree of commitment?

01:22:55.540 | As you consider marriage, what is your degree of commitment to this?

01:22:59.980 | Most Christians go, "Oh, well, we have a high view of marriage."

01:23:03.140 | Well, I've never met one couple yet that their view of marriage didn't need to be elevated

01:23:09.180 | because God's view, wherever they consider to be their view of marriage, however high

01:23:15.540 | it may be, God's view is always somehow much higher.

01:23:21.180 | Do you believe that your problems can be solved?

01:23:25.180 | How much hope do you have?

01:23:27.300 | Do you think that's possible?

01:23:30.140 | Can your problems be solved?

01:23:33.780 | How much hope do you have?

01:23:37.540 | I love this because when you ask this question, grab your Bible and let's go over to Proverbs

01:23:41.100 | chapter 15, Proverbs, not Proverbs, I've been there too much, Romans chapter 15.

01:23:51.180 | I said Proverbs and I'm going over to Romans here, Romans chapter 15, verse 4, "For whatever

01:24:00.060 | was written in earlier times was written for our instruction so that through perseverance,"

01:24:04.940 | that is a faithful keeping of the word, "and the encouragement of Scripture, we might have

01:24:09.540 | hope."

01:24:12.060 | There's two ingredients for hope here.

01:24:14.580 | One is persevering and obedience.

01:24:19.100 | That's what gives hope.

01:24:20.700 | And the other is the encouragement of Scripture through the promises of Scripture.

01:24:24.060 | If we're faithful to God, then God is also faithful to us.

01:24:28.460 | We can trust him.

01:24:31.900 | As that's the case, our hope builds and that's key for a marriage that is hopeless.

01:24:37.540 | In fact, a little bit later on, same particular chapter, verse 13, Romans 15, 13, "Now may

01:24:48.540 | the God of hope," that's the way our God is described, "fill you with all joy and peace

01:24:53.500 | and believing so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

01:24:58.380 | As you face problems and difficulties, our God is considered a God of hope.

01:25:04.300 | Number seven, how happy are you with your marriage?

01:25:07.960 | How happy are you with marriage?

01:25:09.540 | On a scale of 1 to 10, what would you, 10 being absolutely overwhelmed and overjoyed,

01:25:16.980 | 1 being this is a miserable existence, what rate would you give your marriage, 1 to 10?

01:25:26.620 | Why would you give them that number?

01:25:28.420 | Number eight, if you could change anything about yourself, your marriage, spouse, kids,

01:25:33.600 | and know for sure that God would give you the resources to make the change, what would

01:25:37.300 | you choose to change?

01:25:39.580 | What would your spouse choose to change?

01:25:44.120 | What would you choose to change and what would your spouse choose to change?

01:25:48.420 | And how are the differences important here?

01:25:55.820 | Something that you would want to change about your marriage.

01:26:07.100 | I'd have more kids, less kids.

01:26:09.900 | I want my husband to change.

01:26:10.900 | I want my wife to change.

01:26:14.500 | Whatever, fill in the blank.

01:26:19.720 | As God views your life, number nine, marriage, what do you think He wants continued and what

01:26:28.520 | does He want changed?

01:26:31.400 | As God views it, what does He want you to continue?

01:26:35.220 | That which is good, because every Christian marriage at some degree or another has some

01:26:40.120 | goodness in it, if it's nothing other than the fact that they say that they are committed

01:26:46.040 | to Jesus Christ.

01:26:47.040 | So, we're going to start there.

01:26:50.440 | Has some kind of goodness in it, not that it's innate to the couple, but because of

01:26:55.520 | what God has done in that marriage.

01:26:57.680 | So, we can start there.

01:26:59.960 | So, what does God want to continue in your marriage that's good and then what does He

01:27:06.760 | want changed?

01:27:08.160 | Just five things that would make your marriage better.

01:27:14.020 | What would make your marriage better?

01:27:19.280 | Number ten, what do you want from your marriage and what will it take to get it there?

01:27:27.760 | What do you want from your marriage and what will it take to get it there?

01:27:38.960 | This really defines their hope.

01:27:43.820 | It defines what they're looking for, expecting in the future.

01:27:50.600 | Sometimes their expectations are in line with what God would want and sometimes their expectations

01:27:56.000 | are not in line with what God would want.

01:28:01.080 | Sometimes they can come across with expectations that sound really biblical, but when you nail

01:28:05.840 | down the specifics of it, you find out it's not biblical.

01:28:11.800 | So what do you want from your marriage and what will it take to get it there?

01:28:17.520 | Number twelve, in what ways have you changed your way of relating to your spouse since

01:28:20.960 | you were first engaged or since your first few months of marriage and how has your spouse

01:28:25.520 | changed?

01:28:31.720 | Have you changed the way that you relate to your spouse?

01:28:34.320 | In what ways have you changed?

01:28:40.460 | Are you kinder?

01:28:43.520 | Are you gentler?

01:28:45.840 | Are you more caring?

01:28:46.840 | Are you more patient?

01:28:49.080 | Are you more loving?

01:28:53.900 | Do you express your love and in what ways do you express your love?

01:29:00.080 | Number thirteen, what would it be like to be married to someone just like you?

01:29:05.120 | Would you like it?

01:29:06.120 | That's a great question, isn't it?

01:29:10.520 | What would it be like if you were married to you?

01:29:14.800 | I think you'd have even more problems.

01:29:19.980 | If you were married to you, you'd really be stumbling around.

01:29:26.760 | Number fourteen, what must happen for you to be satisfied with your marriage?

01:29:33.660 | What's really going to make you satisfied?

01:29:35.440 | What's really going to make you happy?

01:29:39.620 | If you were able to establish that, then you'll usually find out the core of their problem.

01:29:52.220 | Number fifteen, what are you willing to do to improve your marriage relationship?

01:29:56.840 | How far are you willing to go?

01:30:00.760 | And a follow-up to this particular question that I'd love to ask is, are you willing to

01:30:05.820 | go as far as personally changing?

01:30:11.000 | I knew this was going to be hard.

01:30:19.800 | Are you willing to go as far as personally changing?

01:30:25.400 | Number sixteen, if talking to someone who knew nothing about marriage, how would you

01:30:29.560 | explain it to that person?

01:30:35.960 | Now that's a great question, too.

01:30:37.640 | It kind of steps back, asks them to reflect upon, which helps you to understand what kind

01:30:42.580 | of attitudes they formed about marriage.

01:30:45.760 | Couples that have had problems, chronic problems over years have formed negative, pessimistic,

01:30:54.460 | dark views of marriage.

01:30:56.600 | Oh, it's hard.

01:30:59.120 | It's difficult.

01:31:00.720 | This is drudgery.

01:31:03.240 | It's constant conflict.

01:31:05.280 | There's arguing.

01:31:06.280 | And then there are others who will say, well, you know, marriage requires work, but it's

01:31:15.480 | a good kind of work because, you know, my wife is God's main tool of sanctification

01:31:22.320 | in my life.

01:31:26.800 | She's changing me through her.

01:31:30.840 | And I must be God's main tool of sanctification in her life as well.

01:31:35.360 | If talking to someone who knew nothing about marriage, how would you explain it to that

01:31:42.120 | person?

01:31:43.120 | Number seventeen, as you view marriage, what are seven or eight important elements that

01:31:47.360 | make a marriage what it ought to be?

01:31:50.360 | What would you like to strengthen?

01:31:51.600 | How do you think that these elements could be strengthened?

01:31:57.040 | What ought it be?

01:32:02.080 | That's a critical question.

01:32:02.960 | I think it's a critical question.

01:32:03.960 | I think it's a critical question.

01:32:04.960 | I think it's a critical question.

01:32:05.960 | I think it's a critical question.

01:32:06.960 | I think it's a critical question.

01:32:07.960 | I think it's a critical question.

01:32:08.960 | I think it's a critical question.

01:32:09.960 | I think it's a critical question.

01:32:10.960 | I think it's a critical question.

Lecture 6: Marriage and Family Counseling - Dr. John D. Street

Chapters