Biblical counseling is difficult. If you’ve had any experience counseling others, you’ll know first-hand just how difficult it can be. We’re not the first generation of people who find biblical counseling or pastoral care difficult. Speaking of the difficulty of pastoral care, or of providing spiritual guidance, Gregory Nazianzen famously compared pastoral guidance to the practice of medicine. Nazianzen wrote: “the guiding of man, the most variable and manifold of creatures, seems to me in very deed to be the art of arts and science of sciences. Anyone may recognise this, by comparing the work of the physician of souls with the treatment of the body; and noticing that, laborious as the latter is, ours is more laborious, and of more consequence, from the nature of its subject matter, the power of its science, and the object of its exercise.”1Gregory Nazianzen, 1894. Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. In P. Schaff & H. Wace, eds. S. Cyril of Jerusalem, S. Gregory Nazianzen. A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series. New York: Christian Literature Company, p. 208.
The Difficulty of Rejection
Because of this difficulty, wise biblical counselors realize that this ministry will be attended to with many hardships. One of those hardships is dealing with heartache when our counsel is rejected. Even when we counsel wisely, there is no guarantee that our counsel will be heeded. This is something we see happening within the pages of Scripture as well.
In Ezekiel 3, God commands Ezekiel to be a watchman for His people (Ezekiel 3:16-21). Ezekiel’s job was to “hear the word I speak and give them warning from me” (Ezekiel 3:17). Nevertheless, God tells Ezekiel that there will be people who ignore the message. Indeed, in Ezekiel 33, when the watchman imagery is again presented (Ezekiel 33:1-9), God tells Ezekiel that, although many will enjoy hearing his words, they see Ezekiel as a performer whose words are lovely to hear but safe to ignore: “As for you, son of man, your people are talking together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, saying to each other, ‘Come and hear the message that has come from the Lord.’ My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to hear your words, but they do not put them into practice. Their mouths speak of love, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice” (Ezekiel 33:30-32). Biblical counselors with even a little bit of experience will testify to this experience—having counselees who may appear to enjoy counseling but who actually reject it.
The Heartache that Follows Rejection
Nevertheless, despite being aware of how difficult it is, as biblical counselors, we can still experience enormous heartache when our counsel is rejected. I’d like to suggest that there is a godly heartache and an ungodly heartache that we might experience as counselors.
Godly Heartache
Godly heartache is the pain and sorrow we feel when those we care for reject God’s Word and incur pain and misery as a result. It’s the inverse of what the apostle John says when he writes, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 4). We can rightly say that one of the things that brings us great sorrow is when those we have sought to help reject God’s truth to their own harm. This sorrow is appropriate, and even evidence of our love for them.
But what do we do with this sorrow? We lament. We pray for them, and we talk to God about the heartache we are experiencing. There may, of course, be other steps that need to be taken depending on what their rejection of God’s Word entails. But the suggestion I want to emphasize here is that we lament. As we lament, we deepen our trust in God. We are reminded, through the experience of prayer, that God is sovereign over all things, that He is working out His eternal purposes, and that He remains with us through it all.
One of the books I have found personally helpful is 2 Timothy. In his final letter, Paul talks of Demas, who “because he loved this world, has deserted me” (2 Timothy 4:10). In fact, Paul says as he references his first trial defense, “everyone deserted me” (2 Timothy 4:16). Paul understands the heartache of rejection as those he invested his life in walked away from him—and, certainly in the case of Demas, who also walked away from the Gospel.
What kept Paul going? How did Paul deal with the heartache? When everyone deserted me, Paul triumphantly says, “the Lord stood by my side and gave me strength” (2 Timothy 4:17).
My sense is that for many biblical counselors, we need to learn the experience Paul talks about in 2 Timothy 4:17. Regardless of whether or not your counselees heed or reject your counsel, whether—like Demas—they even abandon the cause of Christ, we need to learn how be strengthened by the Lord. Consider the wonder of this verse afresh. Perhaps memorize it or stick it on your fridge door. The Lord will stand by your side and give you strength.
Ungodly Heartache
Finally, is there an ungodly heartache that we might experience? Yes, I think there may well be. When our counsel is rejected, we may feel a sense of injured pride. Or we may be overwhelmed with a sense of incompetence. Or we may reflect obsessively over the minutia of each session.
But while our counsel may have been spurned, and while we are right to reflect on our competence, we must remember that the ministry of biblical counseling is not about us. It is not about us receiving respect, adoration, or applause. Rather, by serving others through the ministry of the Word, we work with them for their joy in the Lord (2 Corinthians 1:24). And any growth in any counselee comes from God—we have perhaps done some planting or watering, but “neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Corinthians 3:7).
Keep on Keeping on
So what should we do when our counsel is rejected and we experience ongoing heartache in ministry? Well, as an exemplar of his own advice, Paul gives the following counsel to Timothy: “keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5). In other words, amid heartache and hardship, keep on going. Keep on keeping on.
And while you do that, while you endure heartache and hardship, my prayer is that you would know that your Lord stands by your side and gives you strength.
