God is Not Your Therapist. He is Your Shepherd and Counselor...
- A Heart Refined with Rachel Menard
- Apr 26
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 27
Recently, I had the privilege of sharing with a beautiful group of women about the beginning stages of really learning how to pray. There is a lot to that, which I will come back to in future blogs, but the primary point was...
The absolute only way to be effective in prayer is to believe God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit are who They say They are, and direct all our prayers unto Them.
I'm sure that when you come across a statement like that, your reaction might be, "Well, no duh, Rachel. That's obvious." However, what we haven't fully acknowledged or addressed is the longstanding presence of a THERAPEUTIC NARRATIVE within Christian culture, suggesting that God is our genie, Jesus is our affirmer, and the Holy Spirit is our therapist.
The full history of the topic is long and somewhat tedious to read, but if you're interested, look into the scientific revolution in the 1700s. There was nothing new under the sun even then, but this is a good starting point because it led to the Enlightenment Era, shifting the focus from the glory of God and the good of others to a self-serving individualism.
As a result of that false teaching, we have inadvertently embraced a prayer life based on the expectation that the Godhead is here to enhance our lives...To empathize with the desires of our flesh and applaud our sinfulness.
In short, we hold so tightly to the desires of our heart that prayer has become about self, treating the Holy Spirit as nothing more than our therapist.
"Isn't He our Counselor?!" Might be the first question that pops into your head. And the answer is always a strong YES, but it is important for us to understand the difference between the therapeutic counsel we are seeking versus WHO HE IS!!!
Modern-day therapists are, by Google's definition, "professionals who specialize in helping clients develop better cognitive and emotional skills, reduce symptoms of mental illness, and cope with various life challenges to improve their lives."
This is not totally bad!! God has given us educated people who can provide tools to help us deal with the physical, mental, and emotional consequences of a fallen world!
Yet this can ultimately become the "finding ourselves" rut, and the only way out is to look beyond ourselves, examining God's purpose for us through the lens of the cross... and the finished work of Jesus Christ (Eph 2:1-10)! There, we are truly counseled according to His character and plan, and able to resituate ourselves from only thinking about ways to better ourselves...and reset our trajectory UNTO HIM!
In doing so, we stop seeking a better life on this earth and start asking Him to help us embrace that HE is our portion. There, we recognize that all things given or permitted to us—including trials, trauma, and tragedy—serve as vessels through which we will display His holiness, JOINING HIM in drawing others UNTO HIM!
But where does that even start?!
Because if you are anything like me...learning how to get out of the therapeutic hamster wheel has been a challenge. Simply put, though...When I linger in the green pasture of His presence, my life and prayers stop being as much about me and become a tender time of praise and Spirit-led intercessions that could not come from my limited mind, and there I am most certain He will delight in answering.
In the next blog, I will go deeper into the chapter with you, but first...
You...alone with the Holy Spirit, begin by embracing the Father as your Shepherd and the One who instructs the Holy Spirit on how to counsel you in Psalm 23. Reflect on the meaning of each verse in this chapter, which you might have memorized since childhood. Enjoy the fact that the word "me" is used a lot, but also ask the Holy Spirit to teach what the blessing of God's attentiveness to you actually requires of you. Pray slowly through each line, considering WHO HE IS...and how it all points to Jesus!
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