Dear Friends,
Sometimes you come across a story that sticks with you. This particular true story was one I read in 1897 and still remember today. Therefore, I thought I would share it with you. It comes from a book entitled “He Touched Me” by John Powell. Powell was a professor and counsellor at Loyola University in Chicago, with degrees in Psychology, the Classics, and Theology, and at the time when the events of this story transpired he was going through some inner struggles himself – events he chronicles in another book, “Why Am I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am?” At that time a lady came to him for counselling – who in the end changed his outlook on counselling. This is her story, and one that changed him. Enjoy.
“A neurotic friend was weaving in and out of my life a few years ago. Each time we met there was the same neurotic whine, the same indecision, the same egocentric focus that is born out of deeply embedded pain from past trauma. It became clear that after many counselling sessions (over a three year period) she had not become one bit more comfortable or functional than when we first met. I felt I was a failure. I felt angry and disgusted…
Months later I answered the phone to hear the voice of my troubled friend. I knew she would want another appointment and I would agonize along with her while she resurrected the same old problems, like a broken record. But ah! The Spirit loves to surprise us. The voice I heard on the phone was somehow the same, but somehow different. My “keen diagnostic ear” said there was a new peace in her. Several times I had to ask myself, “Who is this?” as she quietly and peacefully said that she did not want another appointment, that she knew I was busy and did not want to take any more of my time. The only purpose of her call, she said, was to thank me for my patience and the help I had given her over the past three years.
I could not believe what I was hearing. There was all the resonance of sincerity in her voice, yet such abrupt personality changes just do not happen in real life. So, I said: “You’re a different person, aren’t you?” And she replied, “Oh yes!” “What happened?” “I met Jesus Christ,” she replied. “You what?” “I met Jesus Christ. Before this I knew about Him, but now I know Him.” “If you tell me you have had a vision, I need to…” “No, no vision. But I did meet Jesus Christ.” “I don’t know whether you want to see me,” I said, “but I want to see you.”
When she came to my office my eye confirmed what my ear had led me to suspect. This was a healed person. I do not want to detract one iota from the contributions that counsellors make to the lives of wounded human beings, but clinical psychology and psychiatry must not be allowed to pose as saviors or redeemers. Therapy can never be a substitute for a life of faith.
I knew from my training in psychology that no reputable therapist could ever promise this kind of “cure,” this new “wholeness.” By supportive Psychotherapy people can be comforted, and by reconstructive psychotherapy we can be somewhat readjusted and develop coping mechanisms, but we cannot be healed or cured. This woman, seated before me, expressing gratitude and claiming to have met Jesus Christ, was healed. She knew it and I knew it.
Without any overtones of pride or egotism, she told me of her experience: She was invited to a prayer meeting. She told me how she agreed to go, not really to pray, but to be able to say later that she had, “tried everything, even prayer meetings.” However, she was not prepared for the opening announcement of the leader. In a clear and direct tone, he began: “We have come here tonight to pray. If you can find it in your heart to join us, please stay. But I have a feeling that some of you may have come out of curiosity, like spiritual Peeping Toms to see what goes on at prayer meetings. If this is why you came, and you cannot find it in your heart to join us in reaching out to God, then I would ask you respectfully to leave.”
“O my God,” she thought to herself, “decision number one.” She decided to stay, trying to pry her mind away from the “Exit” sign over the door, and turn it to the Lord. Then she heard one of the leaders urge people to, “Open themselves to the Lord.” “Open all the doors and windows of your soul to the Lord. Don’t keep any rooms locked or closed off to Him. Let Jesus take over. The depth of the faith that releases the power of God is measured by your willingness to let God direct your life. Raise yourself up to Him as a gift. Surrender your life and your heart to Him.”
No one knows the day or hour when the Lord will come. For this friend that was the day it happened.”
In John 3:1-8, when speaking of the new birth, Jesus makes an interesting comment. He says about the Holy Spirit’s coming upon or into a person’s life to make them born again, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
That night the wind blew where it pleased. It may not have blown upon anyone else in that place, but it blew upon her, and transformed her, healing years of hurt and making her a new creation, and giving her a whole new outlook on life. A spiritual encounter with Christ that taught her well-educated and well-trained Christian counsellor what God (in one session with Him) could do, which he through three years of counselling had been unable to do.
There are things that can help and things that can cure. There are things that can keep people limping along and things that can fix. There are Band-Aids and there are miracles, and it is good to remember the difference. Otherwise, we may forget (as people often do when looking for alternative “saviors”), that, “The GOSPEL is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe…”
In the Bonds of Gospel Grace, Pastor Jeff
Sometimes you come across a story that sticks with you. This particular true story was one I read in 1897 and still remember today. Therefore, I thought I would share it with you. It comes from a book entitled “He Touched Me” by John Powell. Powell was a professor and counsellor at Loyola University in Chicago, with degrees in Psychology, the Classics, and Theology, and at the time when the events of this story transpired he was going through some inner struggles himself – events he chronicles in another book, “Why Am I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am?” At that time a lady came to him for counselling – who in the end changed his outlook on counselling. This is her story, and one that changed him. Enjoy.
“A neurotic friend was weaving in and out of my life a few years ago. Each time we met there was the same neurotic whine, the same indecision, the same egocentric focus that is born out of deeply embedded pain from past trauma. It became clear that after many counselling sessions (over a three year period) she had not become one bit more comfortable or functional than when we first met. I felt I was a failure. I felt angry and disgusted…
Months later I answered the phone to hear the voice of my troubled friend. I knew she would want another appointment and I would agonize along with her while she resurrected the same old problems, like a broken record. But ah! The Spirit loves to surprise us. The voice I heard on the phone was somehow the same, but somehow different. My “keen diagnostic ear” said there was a new peace in her. Several times I had to ask myself, “Who is this?” as she quietly and peacefully said that she did not want another appointment, that she knew I was busy and did not want to take any more of my time. The only purpose of her call, she said, was to thank me for my patience and the help I had given her over the past three years.
I could not believe what I was hearing. There was all the resonance of sincerity in her voice, yet such abrupt personality changes just do not happen in real life. So, I said: “You’re a different person, aren’t you?” And she replied, “Oh yes!” “What happened?” “I met Jesus Christ,” she replied. “You what?” “I met Jesus Christ. Before this I knew about Him, but now I know Him.” “If you tell me you have had a vision, I need to…” “No, no vision. But I did meet Jesus Christ.” “I don’t know whether you want to see me,” I said, “but I want to see you.”
When she came to my office my eye confirmed what my ear had led me to suspect. This was a healed person. I do not want to detract one iota from the contributions that counsellors make to the lives of wounded human beings, but clinical psychology and psychiatry must not be allowed to pose as saviors or redeemers. Therapy can never be a substitute for a life of faith.
I knew from my training in psychology that no reputable therapist could ever promise this kind of “cure,” this new “wholeness.” By supportive Psychotherapy people can be comforted, and by reconstructive psychotherapy we can be somewhat readjusted and develop coping mechanisms, but we cannot be healed or cured. This woman, seated before me, expressing gratitude and claiming to have met Jesus Christ, was healed. She knew it and I knew it.
Without any overtones of pride or egotism, she told me of her experience: She was invited to a prayer meeting. She told me how she agreed to go, not really to pray, but to be able to say later that she had, “tried everything, even prayer meetings.” However, she was not prepared for the opening announcement of the leader. In a clear and direct tone, he began: “We have come here tonight to pray. If you can find it in your heart to join us, please stay. But I have a feeling that some of you may have come out of curiosity, like spiritual Peeping Toms to see what goes on at prayer meetings. If this is why you came, and you cannot find it in your heart to join us in reaching out to God, then I would ask you respectfully to leave.”
“O my God,” she thought to herself, “decision number one.” She decided to stay, trying to pry her mind away from the “Exit” sign over the door, and turn it to the Lord. Then she heard one of the leaders urge people to, “Open themselves to the Lord.” “Open all the doors and windows of your soul to the Lord. Don’t keep any rooms locked or closed off to Him. Let Jesus take over. The depth of the faith that releases the power of God is measured by your willingness to let God direct your life. Raise yourself up to Him as a gift. Surrender your life and your heart to Him.”
No one knows the day or hour when the Lord will come. For this friend that was the day it happened.”
In John 3:1-8, when speaking of the new birth, Jesus makes an interesting comment. He says about the Holy Spirit’s coming upon or into a person’s life to make them born again, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
That night the wind blew where it pleased. It may not have blown upon anyone else in that place, but it blew upon her, and transformed her, healing years of hurt and making her a new creation, and giving her a whole new outlook on life. A spiritual encounter with Christ that taught her well-educated and well-trained Christian counsellor what God (in one session with Him) could do, which he through three years of counselling had been unable to do.
There are things that can help and things that can cure. There are things that can keep people limping along and things that can fix. There are Band-Aids and there are miracles, and it is good to remember the difference. Otherwise, we may forget (as people often do when looking for alternative “saviors”), that, “The GOSPEL is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe…”
In the Bonds of Gospel Grace, Pastor Jeff
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