A Missing Link in Counseling
When counselees with deep problems come to New Life Assembly of God in Yorkville, Illinois, they may see Pastor Paul Martin for only half the hour.
In some situations, they spend the first 30 minutes alone in the church's prayer room. "Go and cry out to the Lord everything you're going to tell me," Martin instructs them. "Lay it all before him—and then we'll come together to talk about what he has shown you in prayer."
Some are surprised by this approach, but so far no one has resisted or become angry. Many, of course, have never spent a full half hour praying about their difficulty. By the time they reach the pastor's office, their entire perspective is often changed.
"I was doing a lot of conventional counseling," Martin remembers, "and not seeing the changes I wanted to see. The Lord began speaking to me from the Psalms—the many times David says, 'I will call upon the Lord' and Tour out your heart before him' and 'Hear my cry, O Lord.' It struck me that the most profitable thing some people could do would be to tell God everything they were telling me, and wait for his responses.
"The effect has been incredible. Nearly all those who used to see me on a weekly basis have shown definite change. It has helped sort out those who are sincere, and it has hammered home the point that they don't come to me for answers, because I'm not the Source. They must come to the Lord with their problems."
This approach is not a gimmick to let Martin jam in twice as many appointments. "I don't have people stacked up like a doctor's office: one in the examining room and another waiting in the chair. No, while the counselee is in the prayer room, I'm praying and searching the Word in my office, too, preparing my heart and mind for the half hour ...
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