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Getting Better at Getting to the Heart

How to move past behavior modification to get to the heart of the person and their problem.

Jan 16, 2025

You’re interested in ministering to the heart. The purpose of this session is to help counselors grow in their ability to address heart issues rather than just settling for behavior modification. In what we call our Track 3 training at Wheelersburg Baptist, we’ve tried to move beyond just talking about the theory of counseling (getting the content) to how we do this. The key elements of counseling include gathering data, discerning the problem, giving homework, and so forth. One of the key elements is getting to the heart issue, not just settling for behavior modification. In this session, we’re going to talk about that slice of the pie. There’s certainly a spill over into the other elements, but we’re focusing on that, realizing that it’s not isolated as we counsel. These are not pick-and-choose elements. Each is vital in the process of helping counselees, but to be more effective, it is sometimes helpful to break it apart and then put it back together again. As a result, we’re breaking the counseling process apart and talking about this slice: How do you get to the heart when you’re dealing with people?

In a sense, counselors face the same challenge that I faced raising children. I have two daughters who are grown and out of the nest now. When a behavior problem confronted me as a dad, I could easily become preoccupied with identifying the behavior and going after the behavior because that’s what was most pressing and that’s what I could see. Of course, I would be very negligent as a dad if that’s what I did. The behavior problem has to be addressed, but Jesus said it well in Matthew 15:19: “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slanders.” If I’m going to be a good dad, I’m concerned about behavior, but I’m concerned about what’s going on in the heart that produced the behavior. As a biblical counselor, that’s critical for us. We see presentation problems and we usually see behavior. We are concerned about that, but as a good shepherd of the souls of people, I’m interested in what’s going on in the part that I can’t see.

Now, let’s clarify some questions first of all.

Due to time constraints, we will not be addressing some important questions such as the relationship between the biblical terms heart, soul, mind, intellect, and will. For our purposes, when I talk about heart and heart issues, I’m using it in the rather broad sense just to refer to the unseen, immaterial aspect of the counselee for whom you’re seeking to care. I want us to turn together to Ezekiel 14 to see an example of this.

I want to read the first 11 verses of this text. It’s actually a counseling situation. Let’s listen to God’s word.

Some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat down in front of me. Then the word of the LORD came to me:

“Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces. Should I let them inquire of me at all? Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When any of the Israelites set up idols in their hearts and put a wicked stumbling block before their faces and then go to a prophet, I the LORD will answer them myself in keeping with their great idolatry. I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols.’ Therefore say to the people of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices! When any of the Israelites or any foreigner residing in Israel separate themselves from me and set up idols in their hearts and put a wicked stumbling block before their faces and then go to a prophet to inquire of me, I the LORD will answer them myself. I will set my face against them and make them an example and a byword. I will remove them from my people. Then you will know that I am the LORD. And if the prophet is enticed to utter a prophecy, I the LORD have enticed that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel. They will bear their guilt—the prophet will be as guilty as the one who consults him. Then the people of Israel will no longer stray from me, nor will they defile themselves anymore with all their sins. They will be my people, and I will be their God, declares the Sovereign LORD.’”

I suggest to you that this is a counseling situation. Some of the leaders of Israel come to Ezekiel and they sit down and they want to talk to him about a problem or problems. God tells Ezekiel, “This is what you are to say to these counselees.” [I understand the sufficiency of Scripture, but I wish that the Lord would say to me, “Okay, with your counselees, this is what you need to say to them: ‘Do this.’” My common prayer is, “Lord, I love Jehoshaphat. I don’t know what to do, but my eyes are on you. What do I do with this situation?”] 

I’m intrigued that, according to the Lord, the counselees had two problems. Did you notice this? One: they put up wicked stumbling blocks before their eyes; they manufactured idols. That’s a behavior problem, and it’s going to need to be addressed, but this behavior is rooted in a second problem: these men have set up—the phrase is repeated—”idols in their hearts.” The Lord mentions that in verses 3, 4, 5, and 7. The Lord confronts both matters. So did Ezekiel. So must we as we seek to counsel people. We are interested in behavior, but we must give attention to what’s going on in the heart.

We’re not going to do an extensive study of this important subject of the idols of the heart. Others have thankfully provided a lot of helpful guidance for us in that. We want to focus on the application of this concept. If idols of the heart exist, and they do, then we, as counselors, need to help our counselees, and of course ourselves, deal with these idols of the heart. In this workshop, we’re going to focus on how to identify and address heart idols related to behavioral problems and how we obtain understanding of what these idols are through questions, through biblical instruction, through homework, etc. Just some recommended reading and tools that you might want to think about:

  • Paul Tripp’s excellent book Instruments in the Redeemers Hands.
    Chapter 4 is entitled “The Heart is the Target.” Chapter 5 is entitled “Understanding your Heart Struggle.”
  • C.J. Mahaney’s three-part series of messages called “The Idol Factory.” You can Google and find that.
  • Ed Welch’s Motives: Why do I do the things I do?
  • Then I don’t know who developed it first, but the Y-chart that’s been used a lot in biblical counseling circles. I find that chart very helpful, and I use it a lot in helping discern what’s going on in a person’s heart.

Now, what do we mean by heart issues? I mean that there are things in the counselee’s life, things that are not pleasing to the Lord because they’re not Christ-like and are contrary to Scripture—issues that need to be addressed nouthetically or biblically. These issues are not simply behavioral in nature, but pertaining to the thinking, the desires, the aspirations, the matters of the heart. This is our concern as biblical counselors: to help counselees change in ways that will be lasting, put off heart idols, and put on the kinds of heart aspirations and thoughts, and so forth, that are Christ-like and pleasing to our God. We’re interested in addressing the needs of the whole person. Some important heart texts:

  • Proverbs 4:23: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
  • Ezekiel 14. We just looked at this passage.
  • Luke 6:43-45: “…for out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.”
  • James 4:1-3: This passage doesn’t use the term heart, but it certainly speaks of the dynamics of the heart when it says, “What causes fights…” and talks about the desires within you that are battling. Every good biblical counselor dealing with marriage conflict understands that we just can’t teach the four rules of communication; we need to address what’s going on in the desires of the heart when a couple is struggling.
  • Psalm 19:14: ” May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight.” We’ll come back to this text a little later.
  • Psalm 139:23: “Search me, O God, and know my heart.”

What are some examples of heart issues? Calvin said it well: “The heart is an idol factory. The issues of the heart are boundless and abundant.” Bob Jones talked about some of the heart issues that affect a parent struggling with a child that’s declared to be homosexual. We all have issues in our heart, things we’re wanting, things we’re thinking. Let me give you an example that we’ll work on and then we’ll come to our case study.

Three different 30-year-old men are involved in pornography. They commit the same action: they sit down at their desk, they take their mouse, they click, and they look at pornography. It’s the same action. But there are a host of different heart motivations and heart issues that could affect this particular same action. For instance, let me give you three idols that could cause a man to sin sexually via pornography. Keeping in mind—this is a whole different subject—that according to Romans 1 and Ephesians 5:3-4, sexual sin is at its root idolatry. He’s worshipping the creature rather than the Creator.

  1. Why is the first man doing this? If you could talk to him, you’d find out that he just wants the sheer sexual thrill. He wants that. That’s what it’s all about for him.
  2. If you talked to the second man, he would say, “That’s not it at all for me, although to be honest, there’s some of that. But my life is full of pressure and tension. I’ve got a dead-end job and a bad marriage. The reason I do this is as an escape from reality for me. What I want is an escape from reality.” I always find it helpful to just finish the sentence, “What I want is….” Then you find out what’s going on in the heart. That’s very important for me to know as I’m trying to help this man.
  3. The third man is feeling great guilt for a bad relationship that he can’t fix. He feels like life is out of control and it goes back to all kinds of things related to guilt, maybe things in his past. What he wants is: “I want something I can control, and when I click on that mouse, I have control of this situation.”

If all we do is disconnect the internet and set up accountability partners for what this person does with his eyes, we’re not going to see lasting change because there are motivations and heart issues affecting this behavior. That gives us a picture of the relationship between heart and behavior. I want to talk just for a moment about what happens when a counselor fails to address heart issues in counseling. We’ve all done this. I look back at the biblical counseling that I did 20 years ago as I was just starting out. It tended to be pretty much focused on behavior: teach couples struggling in their marriage how to communicate better, teach them how to have a date, teach them how to do kind things for each other. All of those are important and all of those are part of change, but it’s negligent of the issues that we’re talking about here.

The help that we give, if we just focus on the external behaviors, is going to be incomplete, probably superficial, and likely short-lived. If we neglect heart issues, we often end up offering mere behavior modification, which when achieved, produces pride. If I can put it this way, to use a biblical term, it produces Pharisees. The last time I read my Bible, that’s not something that is commended. We’re not interested in producing Pharisees in our counseling. On the other hand, when we address heart issues in counseling, I find that it gives me the opportunity to do what I love to do in counseling. I’ll tell people right up front when I’m working with them, “I’m just the middleman, which means I don’t have the power to change what you bring to me.” Secondly, they start opening up their life and you’ve heard this too as a biblical counselor, “I’m so ashamed to be telling you these things. I wish I didn’t have to burden you with these things.” Then I’ll say, “You’re not burdening me with anything. Again, I’m just the middleman because what I’m going to do is I’m going to take this to God and we’re going to learn what He has to say in His word about your situation. I get the privilege to be on the front row of watching what God is doing to transform your life. It’s a wonderful, wonderful privilege.” I’ll tell people this and they’ll smile. “I really don’t counsel because of you; I counsel because of Him.” I love seeing God bring glory to Himself in people’s lives.

Therefore, when we give attention to the heart and seek to address the issues of the heart, what I find is that it gives us the opportunity to give a clear sighting of the cross in every session. If I haven’t given a clear sighting of the cross in every session, I’ve probably been neglecting the heart. Because when we start finding out about what’s going on in the heart (pride or greed or whatever the issue is), what’s the solution? The solution is that God Almighty has sent His Son into the world, and He went to the cross and took the penalty for our sin. He came to rescue us from our heart and life problems, He died in our place, and He conquered the grave. As we talk about problems, we quickly have the privilege to then present the cross and focus upon the sufficiency of the atoning work of Jesus, keeping the gospel at the center of every counseling session.

The questions that come up next are: How do we do this? How do we expose heart issues in counseling?

The answer, simply put, is that we can’t. How do we expose heart issues in counseling? The answer is we can’t. I’m very mindful of that. To get to the heart, we must recognize our inadequacy. I don’t care how long we’ve been counseling; I don’t have the ability to get inside and understand what’s going on in a person’s heart. I don’t even know my own heart. It’s deceptive. It’s prone to wander. I don’t understand, and then even if I’m beginning to understand, I don’t have the capacity to get in that heart and do anything about what I’m seeing. Yet, God does. God can. God is the God who changes people from the inside, out. How does He do that? Let me suggest that He has given us three tools that help us get at the heart. This is basic, but I don’t think we ever get beyond basic.

1. Prayer.

As we’re working with people, we’re praying this prayer: “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable…” or “Search me, O God, and know my heart.” I’m praying that. I’m helping the counselee to pray and ask, “What’s going on inside that’s causing this to show up? Help us to see that. Help us to understand that.” God loves that prayer. He gets glory when that answer is given.

2. His word.

This is a tool that is vital to us, not just for teaching people what to do, but the word of God helps us to see what’s going on in the heart. Hebrews 4:12 says that the word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. I love Jeremiah 31:33, which is quoted in Hebrews 10:16, that says, “I will write My law on their heart.” In this new covenant, God writes His law on the hearts of His people. It’s an amazing thing to see how God is going after the heart. We’re partnering with Him in this ministry, as Paul says in Corinthians. Of course, this makes the gospel vital. Only God can reach the heart. Techniques cannot reach the heart. He can, and our aim is to cooperate with Him through prayer and the word.

3. Trials.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this in recent years. I was thinking about how John Newton described God’s use of trials in the song I asked the Lord that I might grow. He uses the line of: “to help us see the hidden evils of my heart.” He says towards the end of that poem-song:

Lord, why is this, I trembling cried,

Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?

“‘Tis in this way,” the Lord replied,

“I answer prayer for grace and faith.”

“These inward trials I employ,

From self, and pride, to set thee free;

And break thy schemes of earthly joy,

That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”

I think Newton had so much wisdom in this. I take from this poem that one of the tools that God uses to help us see what’s going on in our hearts is trials. Before we try to eliminate the trials from people’s lives and the effects of those trials, we want to enter into it to find out what God is up to through this and help them to see.

I don’t think it was because I became a pastor, but about a year after I became a pastor was the first time I went to the doctor about my migraines. Since then, it’s been four neurologists and four chiropractors and a bunch of others. For the last 27 or so years, I’ve had migraine pain about 15 days a month. I deal with pain a lot. I’m a wimp when it comes to pain, so God has grown me in that. Last night at 12:30am, I wake up with the pain, and I’m like, “Lord, I’m going to be teaching these people tomorrow. I really want to be fresh.” That’s a heart issue. “I want…. What I want is….” If you could tease that out, “I don’t want them to think, ‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’ I don’t want them to think, ‘Look at this guy, he’s not even looking at us.’” Or, in the singing time earlier, “What will people think, Lord, if I’m not looking up at the screen. They’ll think that I’m just thinking about the lesson that I’m going to be teaching next and that I’m not entering into the singing.” I mean, this is where we live. We have these heart issues, things we’re wanting, things we’re thinking. What will people think of me? Fear of man and all that. God is saying, “Okay, listen, this isn’t just about you teaching them about issues of the heart so that they can help other people. This is always about you. This is about you.” As the counselor, God is always working in your life too. Heart is something we all deal with and we understand very well when our counselees are struggling.

You can think of trials as a tool that we have. Trials in people’s lives are, in this sense, wonderful. They are teachers. They open up for us the opportunity to see things we would never see when things are going smoothly. As biblical counselors, this is helpful for us.

The question again is: How do we expose heart issues in counseling? We can’t, but God has given us His word, prayer, and trials. Some tools that I have found helpful include teaching. I like using the Y-chart, particularly the statement “People do what they do because of what they’re thinking and wanting.” I just unpack that. “People do what they do because of what they’re thinking and because of what they’re wanting.” Another tool is good questions. For example,

  1. What do you want most when you come home from work?
    • “I want my television and my remote, and I want some peace and quiet.” That tells me a lot about heart issues that are affecting why he talks the way that he does to his wife.
    • Or, “I want my husband to ask how my day went.” That tells me a lot about what she’s wanting.
  2. What would make you happiest as a dad? The following are all heart motivations:
    • “Good report cards from the kids.”
    • “My son scored the most points on the basketball team in the game.”
    • “My kids love Jesus.”
  3. What do you find yourself thinking when you and your wife are fighting?
    This, too, is another subject, but it takes me back to when my wife and I had been married about seven years. I started pastoring Wheelersburg Baptist when we had been married four years. I’m three years into pastoring, we’re in the bedroom. I could take you to the exact spot in our house since we still live in the same house. I’m sitting on the bed and she’s standing by the window. I said, “I think we have a really good marriage.” She looks at me and says, “I think you’re being naive.” There are heart issues, right? Growing up, I was the peacemaker or the peacefaker. I entered into marriage thinking, “I’m not going to fight. I’m not going to argue. I’m this way. This is me. You have a problem with anger, and I think we have a good marriage.”
  4. What were you thinking when you and your wife were fighting? 
    • “I was thinking I wanted her to respect me. Wouldn’t any husband? I want her to respect me.”
    • Or she might say, “I think I’m a pretty good wife. Why is he never pleased?”

The answers to those questions expose for us what’s going on in the heart, and are very helpful for us.

Another tool that’s helpful for us in getting at the heart is a journal of upsets. I find this very helpful. I have the person keep a journal and answer questions every time they get upset during the week. You can use a variety of journal questions, but, for example:

  1. What happened to you? What happened when you became upset?
  2. What did you do when you became upset?
  3. What were you thinking?
  4. What were you wanting when you became upset?

That second question, of course, reveals behavior. “I slammed the door. That’s what I did.”

The third and fourth questions reveal heart issues. “I was thinking that my wife and my kids should give me a break after a hard day of work and not be nagging me.” Or, “I was wanting some peace and quiet.” What’s going on in the thoughts and in the desires of the heart?

Alright, let’s move now to this little case study. What we’ll do here is I’m going to read it so that we can hear it. Then, I’ll give you some of my thoughts on some of the things that come out of this little scenario.

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CASE STUDY

“I’m embarrassed to admit it, but we fight all the time.”

Those are the first words John said to you after you opened the counseling session with prayer. Followed by these, “You wouldn’t expect to hear that from a pastor, would you? I mean Amy and I fight about everything. Money. How to discipline the kids. Where to go on vacation. Everything. We can’t carry on a civil conversation without things getting heated.”

Although you’ve never met John before today, you learn from his PDI that he is an associate pastor in a church twenty miles from you, where he has served on a fairly large staff for three years. He and his wife, Amy, have been married for ten years and have three young children.

“I don’t get it,” John continues. “I mean, I know I’m not perfect, but my wife is always getting upset with me. We need help with our communication.”

When you ask John why he’s come to see you for counseling rather than his pastor, he sort of drops his head and says, “I don’t want my church to know what’s going on. You understand, don’t you?” And then adds, “I sure would hate to lose my ministry over this.”

He says Amy will probably come next time, but today she’s at home with a sick child.

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That is the scenario. Let me walk through the questions, and then we’ll see these one at a time. The questions we are going to be thinking about are:

1. What are some potential heart issues that you’re observing in John’s life? What information in this little scenario helps you to identify these heart issues?

2. What kinds of questions might you ask John to get at the heart issues that need attention? Come up with five good questions you would ask in this session to begin to get at the heart issues. Of course, we use questions for lots of reasons, including data gathering and so forth, but focus on questions that are designed for exposing the heart.

3. What does John need most? At what point would you tell him this and how? This is a very, very important question for biblical counselors.

4. What passages of Scripture might you use with John in this session particularly to minister to the needs of his heart?

5. What homework assignments might you give John after this first session to begin to address the heart issues you’re observing?

6. Suppose John agrees to meet with you for at least four sessions (and suppose Amy agrees to come). What might be the focus of your help during those four sessions? Come up with a tentative plan.

1. What are some potential heart issues that you’re observing in John’s life from this scenario? What information in the scenario prompts you to say and think that? What are the heart issues that you’re seeing potentially and why are you seeing those?

I want to walk through the scenario, and I want to point out some things that I see in the scenario itself. Let’s go back to the first part of the scenario. Notice how it begins: “I’m embarrassed to admit it, but we fight all the time.” There are some heart issues surfacing in that statement. Why is he embarrassed? Is it because God is being dishonored in what’s happening in their marriage? As we find out even in the little information from the scenario, there’s real pride going on here: “I’m embarrassed to have to be talking to you about what’s going on in my marriage.” That’s a heart issue. We want to give some attention to that.

As you go down through it, in the second paragraph you see this statement: “You wouldn’t expect to hear that from a pastor, would you?” Pastor to pastor, that’s like throwing the softball up so that I can hit it. I’m like, “Why wouldn’t I expect that?” I always ask the Lord to give me a pastor’s heart. I don’t know if that’s a very good prayer request. (laughs) What you want is a heart like Jesus, and once in a while, this little heart begins to resemble His heart, but this heart is filled with all kinds of things that are not pleasing to Him. When he says, “You wouldn’t expect that from a pastor,” that’s a gold nugget in terms of beginning to expose some heart issues here.

When he says, “I don’t get it. I mean, I know I’m not perfect, but…” that’s another softball, right? “I know I’m not perfect, but…” What does that statement reveal about the way that he’s thinking of himself? What does it reveal about the way that he’s thinking about his sin and the way that he’s communicating with his wife? Again, the communication is the behavior, but this is communicating something to us that we’re going to want to address. Then, of course, when he says, “We need help with our communication,” I’m not going to jump on him right away at any of these points. We’re just observing since this is the first session, but this is really critical for me. He thinks he has a really good marriage and his wife has been saying “You’re really being naive,” right? He doesn’t get what’s going on at the heart level and we have the privilege to love this brother and to help him.

Then there’s the statement towards the end where he says, “I don’t want my church to know what’s going on.” There are all kinds of fear of man in that (probably), or maybe love of position (shall we ask if the church is his ministry or his mistress?). What does he really love most? The church provides for him some things that he doesn’t want to lose, such as money or maybe approval. Those are all heart issues that are potentially in these statements. We don’t know. This is just a short little scenario and these are simple statements. We’ve got to explore further.

To summarize, what are some potential heart issues that we’re observing?

  • Pride
  • Fear of man
  • Love of man’s approval
  • Self-worship
  • I don’t want my church to know

2. What kinds of questions might you ask John to get at the heart issues that need attention? Write down five good questions that you would like to ask John to begin to address, expose, and potentially address the heart issue.

As you know as a biblical counselor, what’s being said and halo data is coming at you and you need to process on your feet or on your seat, trying to figure out what to say next. Like me, you’re probably like, “I’m going to need five minutes. I need five minutes to come up with some good questions.” You don’t have five minutes. Even in the counseling session, it just happens quickly. That’s one of the practical benefits of taking only two minutes to come up with five good questions.

In a session I did four years ago, I used a scenario about a couple having marriage problems. The statement the wife made was something to the effect that “All he wants to do is hunt and fish, and now he’ll have time for both” because she was wanting a divorce. I asked counselors what questions they would ask to expose the heart issues, and Dale said, “I’d ask what kind of bait he uses.” (audience laughing) That’s exactly how people responded then. I laughed too. He says, “No, no, I’m serious. The answer to the question ‘What kind of bait do you use?’ will tell me whether this guy is really an avid fisherman or she is just making something out of the situation. If he uses worms, that’s one thing. If he’s using these fifty-dollar lures, that’s another thing.” I thought that was a very interesting question to get at the heart issues.

There’s some personality that enters into this, obviously, when you ask these questions. Let me give you some questions I might ask:

  • You say it’s embarrassing to admit that you fight. Why? I’d like to hear him talk about that.
  • What do you want most out of life?
  • What do you want most out of your marriage?
  • What place does the gospel have in your life, John? This is really a general question, but I think it might be something helpful. I’d like John to talk about that with me. I’d tell him that the gospel is the most important thing in my life and ask what place it has in his life.
  • What character in the Bible do you most identify with and why? I found that to be a very revealing question. Often it turns into a homework assignment too, as you can imagine. For example, “I really identify with Job.” Then, we’re going to spend some time looking in Job.
  • What would your wife say is the most important thing in your life? That’s going to help me to see some things.

3. What does John need most? At what point would you tell him this, and how?

This is really an important question for us. It addresses the heart, but it spills over into some other things that are vital in biblical counseling. It’s a three-part related question. 

It’s a trick question. This is going to be the same for any counselee. John happens to be in front of us, but obviously what any person needs most is to become God’s kind of person. If he is not a believer, we enter into the ministry of evangelism with him to help him come to know Christ. If he’s a believer, we help him to become more like Christ. The reason for the question is, At what point do you tell him this and how? He has come to you with some expectations. He wants to talk about communication, right? He says, “I need help with my communication. Pastor to pastor, patch this up.” You’re beginning to see that there’s a whole lot more going on here than the need for four rules of communication. Therefore, at what point will you tell him this and how?

I wrote down the following:

What does he need most? To become a man who trusts and cherishes Christ so much that it affects every thought, desire, pursuit, and relationship in his life. This is what he needs most. I would address it right in the first session, but I would probably say something like, “You know, John, I really appreciate you coming. It took a lot of humility for you to even come and see me. I know you’re reluctant to see your pastoral team where you’re from, but thank you for coming. As I’ve been listening to you, if I can just reflect on some things with you…” What I would say next may or may not be as strong as the following example. Once a guy came to see me just off the street and was telling me about the boatload of problems in his life. I listened for a while, and it was obvious that he wasn’t a believer. The first part of what I said is going to sound really bad, but listen to the whole thing. I said, “Listen, your problem is worse than you thought it was. Your problem is that you’re not pleased with your life. The fact of the matter is that if you were pleased with your life, it doesn’t change the fact that Someone is not pleased with you: the One that has given you life. The solution is better than you could have imagined because this One who gave you life and who is not pleased with your life has sent His Son into the world to take your place and the penalty for your failure to do what you needed to be doing in your life, but also to give you forgiveness and new life.” That led to a wonderful opportunity of evangelism with that man. That way of thinking will enter into this too. For example, “John, don’t take this wrong, but the problem is worse than you thought. You’re thinking you need some behavior modification.” I’d probably tell the story about my conversation with my wife to show that we’re on the same ground here. “There’s more going on here. I need to talk to you about some more fundamental things than just communication. Can I have permission to do that?” That’s how I would lead into talking about not just making the problem go away but becoming God’s kind of person and so forth.

4. What passages of Scripture might you use with John in this session to minister to the needs of his heart?

  • I think I might go to James 4:1-3, read the passage and just begin to develop that with him. I would share with him that when fights are going on between him and his wife, it’s because there are desires going on inside of them.
  • I might go to Psalm 19:14: “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight.” I might say, “John, notice the two parts of this: the words but also the meditation of your heart. There were things the psalmist was thinking that spill over then into the words.
  • Maybe Psalm 139:23: “Search me, O God, and know my heart.” I might say to him, “I want to help you begin to know your heart better as it relates to what’s happening. Let’s talk about that.”

5. What homework assignments might you give to John after this first session to begin to address the heart issues you’re observing?

I’ll just give you some things. I’m sure that you could come up with better ones.

  • The journal of upsets. “John, this week I want you to keep a journal of upsets and every time you get upset write down the day and time, what happened, what you were thinking, and what you were wanting. I want to understand better, John, what’s going on when you’re having these things. Bring that with you and we’ll talk about it next time.”
  • “I want you to memorize Psalm 19:14 and be able to quote it when we get together again next time.”
  • I might have him read The Cross-Centered Life by CJ Mahaney, and in each chapter, pick out the two sentences that most impressed him or spoke to him and then be prepared to tell me why he picked those sentences. I find that’s a helpful tool and also just a way to begin to address heart issues.
  • This is sort of a standard assignment that I use. I love Ephesians. I think I would have him start journaling through Ephesians this week. “I want you to read a chapter a day. Each time you read a chapter, I want you to answer two questions in your little journal: What did you learn about God from that section? Secondly, what is something about yourself that stood out as you were reading Ephesians 1? Next day, from chapter 2, and so forth.” By the time I’m done with him, and if we do the marriage counseling if she comes, they’re going to be bleeding the Book of Ephesians. Ephesians gets at marriage (obviously chapter 4 for communication and chapter 5 for roles and so forth), but it does it in the context of their identity of who they are in Christ first—finding out who they are individually and in terms of connection with the body in chapter 2 and so forth. I just love that approach.

6. Suppose John agrees to meet with you at least four sessions and Amy comes. What might you do? 

This question is more for you as a counselor. Almost always, it seldom happens the way you anticipate at the end of the first session, but I think that having a plan for where to go is helpful. Based on what I know now, I think that what I would do is the next time they’re together (if she comes), we’d work through James 4 (what causes fights). Then I’d start getting them into Ephesians in sessions two, three, and four. In session 2, I’d cover how to communicate God’s way using Ephesians 1-3 and grasping our identity and God’s goal for us. In the third session, I’d work through the four rules of communication. I would want to teach them how to do some things in communicating. Then in the fourth session, I’d want to work through biblical roles in chapter 5. Now, it probably won’t happen that way, but that’s the plan based on what I’m seeing here.


This Conference Message was taken from the 2015 Annual Conference: Homosexuality: Compassion, Care, and Counsel.

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