5 Ways We Grow – “Here are five things that are true of fruit trees and, therefore, true of the fruit of the Spirit.”

Thoughts on Christian Patriotism – “Christians should not turn a cold heart away from their nation. In fact, celebrations like those of Independence Day provide a good start for developing a Christian patriotism…. So maybe Christians can be patriots after all! Indeed, we can be, and we should celebrate our national heritage with thanks to God and with prayers for renewed faith and needed repentance.”

3 Obstacles to Grace-Filled Community – “We frequently discuss and confess the “Christian sins” like not reading our Bible for an hour every day, or forgetting to pray for the candy bar we ate on the way home from work. The reality is, we are messy people, living messy lives, in desperate need of a grace that cleans up messes!”

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BOOKS/BOOKLETS

• Bipolar Disorder (Ed Welch)
• Blame it on the Brain? (Ed Welch)
• Borderline Personality: A Scriptural Perspective (Cathy Wiseman)
• Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling (Bob Kellemen and Steve Viars, eds), Ch. 28: The Complex Mind/Body Connection by Laura Hendrickson
• Counseling the Hard Cases (Stuart Scott and Heath Lambert, eds), contains many chapters on specific issues including Bipolar Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Deceptive Diagnosis: When Sin Is Called Sickness (David Tyler, Kurt Grady)
• Good Mood, Bad Mood: Help and Hope for Depression and Bipolar Disorder (Charles Hodges, MD), author interview here.
• OCD: Freedom for the Obsessive-Compulsive (Mike Emlet)
• Psychology Debunked (Lisa & Ryan Bazler)
• The Christian Counselor’s Medical Desk Reference (Robert Smith, MD)
• The Christian’s Guide to Psychological Terms (Marshall & Mary Asher)
• Will Medicine Stop the Pain? (Elyse Fitzpatrick & Laura Hendrickson)

ONLINE ARTICLES

• Biblical Counseling, the Church, and Mental Illness (compilation of articles from the BCC)
• Mental Illness and the Church (Jeremy Pierre)
• Sorting Out the Spiritual and the Physical (9Marks interview)
• The Cure of Souls [and the Modern Psychotherapies] (David Powlison)

AUDIO/VIDEO

• Association of Biblical Counselors has many teaching resources available, members only.
• Alzheimers & Schizophrenia: Counseling Adults and Their Caregivers (Laura Hendrickson)
• Understanding Bipolar (David Powlison, Winston Smith)
• Understanding Labels and Diagnoses (Mike Emlet)
• Walking Alongside a Person Diagnosed with Bipolar (Sam Williams)

MUSINGS FROM WITHIN THE SECULAR PSYCHIATRIC COMMUNITY

The following articles serve as a representation of the wide array of voices within the secular community. Far from being homogenous in their beliefs about mental illness, the secular psychiatric community still remains very much in the process of developing how they think about mental illness and its treatment. Understanding this helps us become more compassionate and discerning counselors in the confusing world in which we live.

• Addiction Diagnoses May Rise Under Guideline Changes
• Disorder Disorder
• Downplaying the DSM
• NIMH Withdraws Support for DSM-V
• Our Learned Silence on Mental Health

Jonathan Holmes provides commentary on many of these articles, and more, as well as his own personal ‘takeaways’ here.

There is a growing number of books and articles on the subject of mental illness that deserve more attention. Therefore, I will continue to update this resource list as I am able.

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A recent blog post, Downplaying the DSM, informs us that the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Thomas Insel, announced recently that the NIMH will no longer rely on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a longtime guidebook for psychiatry: “While DSM has been described as a ‘Bible’ for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been ‘reliablity’—each edition has ensured clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its validity… Patients with mental disorders deserve better.” Undoubtedly, every person currently involved the mental illness/psychiatric disorder conversation—both within the counseling community as well as the larger evangelical church—would agree. Therefore, the current conversation is a very important one.

As part of this discussion, it is both wise and imperative for biblical counselors to be willing to dialogue with those whose critique of our approach sometimes insinuates that biblical counseling is uncaring, ignorant of physiological dynamics, or overly reductionistic. As biblical counselors we want to practice what we counsel; we need to listen well!

The following articles serve as a representation of the wide array of voices within the secular community. Far from being homogenous in their beliefs about mental illness, the secular psychiatric community still remains very much in the process of developing how they think about mental illness and its treatment.

The National Institute of Mental Health Withdraws Support from DSM-V – “In a humiliating blow to the American Psychiatric Association, Thomas R. Insel, M.D., Director of the NIMH, made clear the agency would no longer fund research projects that rely exclusively on DSM criteria. Henceforth, the NIMH, which had thrown its weight and funding behind earlier editions of the manual, would be ‘re-orienting its research away from DSM categories.’ ‘The weakness’ of the manual, he explained in a sharply worded statement, “is its lack of validity.’ ‘Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure’.”

My takeaway: If the NIMH decides to no longer use the DSM-V in their diagnosis because of “its lack of validity” then why are we so often led to believe that there is widespread consensus on the topic of the DSM categories and diagnoses?  For instance in the case of major depressive episodes, the DSM-IV states, “No laboratory findings that are diagnostic of a Major Depressive Episode have been identified.”

Stop Blaming Newton Tragedy on Mental Illness – “There are various problems with Long’s impassioned piece when it comes to “talking” about mental illness, partly due to the fact it contained a slew of questionable diagnoses—Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant, or Intermittent Explosive Disorder—which aren’t recognized as mental illnesses and better described as learning disabilities or disorders. Police Inspector Michael Brown, who runs the highly respected Mental Health Cop blog, called it “potentially the worst article I have ever read about mental health and violence following an atrocity.” Other critics took issue with the way Long had publically demonized her son as a potential mass murderer. While some complained that Long herself was being demonized as a bad mother, the author from Boise, Idaho, issued a joint statement with one of her erstwhile critics about the need for accessible and affordable mental health care in the U.S.”

My takeaway:  Of course no one wanted to blame mental illness for Adam Lanza’s horrific shooting at Newton. Mental illness was not his issue apparently, but guns were (I’m not a gun control advocate or a gun enthusiast). When is mental illness the cause of certain external problems; when is it okay to blame mental illness?

Our Learned Silence on Mental Health – “We all live in a society where the stigma around mental illness can stop us in our tracks. It’s far more serious than a lack of understanding. People repeat things to you that cut you to the quick and you learn not to tell them what you are going through. Instead, you talk about the Red Sox and gardening.”

My takeaway: A recurring issue that seems to come up with mental illness is the stigma and shame attached with suppressing it. Who in the biblical counseling community would advocate that? While we might disagree on what one’s definition of mental illness is, biblical counselors are always encouraging people to speak and share their thoughts and feelings, to have their personal experience framed by the true wisdom from above.

Is Autism a Form of Mental Illness? – Dr. Steve Grcevich, a local Christian psychiatrist in my area, recently wrote this blog post discussing the fact that autism and other autism spectrum disorders are mental illness: “A mental illness can be defined as a health condition that changes a person’s thinking, feelings, or behavior (or all three) and that causes the person distress and difficulty in functioning. As with many diseases, mental illness is severe in some cases and mild in others. Individuals who have a mental illness don’t necessarily look like they are sick, especially if their illness is mild. Other individuals may show more explicit symptoms such as confusion, agitation, or withdrawal. There are many different mental illnesses, including depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

He references an earlier article from the NY Times where the author clearly states that autism is most definitely not a mental illness: “Whether reporters were directly attributing Mr. Lanza’s shooting rampage to his autism or merely shoddily lumping together very different conditions, the false and harmful messages were abundant. Let me clear up a few misconceptions. For one thing, Asperger’s and autism are not forms of mental illness; they are neurodevelopmental disorders or disabilities. Autism is a lifelong condition that manifests before the age of 3; most mental illnesses do not appear until the teen or young adult years. Medications rarely work to curb the symptoms of autism, but they can be indispensable in treating mental illness like obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.”

My takeaway: So, who is right? What is the definition of mental illness we are working with? If we use the National Institute of Mental Health’s definition that it is simply a “health condition that changes a person’s thinking, feelings, or behavior (or all three) and that causes the person distress and difficulty in functioning,” this seems quite broad to me.

When Mental Illness Isn’t – This post discusses the case study of a man diagnosed with bipolar. After doing a series of neurological exams, it turns out the man had autoimmune encephalitis…not a mental illness.

How Stress and Depression Can Shrink the Brain – Here is a study of laboratory tests and empirical, provable data on how stress and depression both may affect the brain. This type of research seems much different to me than how the secular therapeutic community currently thinks through depression and other mental illness, of which there are no medical tests to diagnose, but merely subjective criteria from the DSM.

Addiction Diagnoses May Rise Under Guideline Changes – In what could prove to be one of their most far-reaching decisions, psychiatrists and other specialists who are rewriting the manual that serves as the nation’s arbiter of mental illness have agreed to revise the definition of addiction, which could result in millions more people being diagnosed as addicts, which poses huge consequences for health insurers and taxpayers. While other medical specialties rely on similar diagnostic manuals, none have such influence. “The D.S.M. is distinct from all other diagnostic manuals because it has an enormous, perhaps too large, impact on society and millions of people’s lives,” said Dr. Allen J. Frances, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke, who oversaw the writing of the current version of the manual and worked on previous editions. “Unlike many other fields, psychiatric illnesses have no clear biological gold standard for diagnosing them. They present in different ways, and illnesses often overlap with each other.”

My takeaway: How is the DSM an “arbiter” of mental illness? If there is no “biological gold standard” then why do we make biology and physiology the only accepted cause of mental illness?

Books that I Have Found Helpful

• The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder (Alan Horwitz and Jerome Wakefield)
• Anatomy of An Epidemic (Robert Whitaker)
• An Unquiet Mind (Kay Redfield Jamison). In her book, which I’ve read several times, the two pillars she returns to most often are her use of lithium and various relationships which have brought her out of her depression and helped her stabilize her mania. Would we not tentatively agree that relationships play a significant role within the context of helping someone with mental illness almost to the same effective level of medication?

[Additional articles by Jonathan Holmes on counseling-related issues may be found at the Biblical Counseling Coalition website.]

Tomorrow, I will post a new resource page on mental illness, highlighting many voices in the biblical counseling community.

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Image source: www.bestmastersincounseling.com

[To see all of the posts in our recent series on suicide please click on the category link below.]

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In preparation for preaching tomorrow, I’ve been studying Luke 4:38-44 this week—the account of Jesus’ healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and many whom the crowds brought to Him, as well as casting out many more demons. Though Jesus was relentless to maintain the priority of preaching; the compassionate, personal care of our Savior toward those in suffering is obvious. The following words, from Phillip Graham Ryken’s commentary, were a wonderful reminder of this personal care of our Great Physician. This lengthy quotation is Ryken’s answer to the common question, “Does Jesus still have healing power today?”

Since Jesus has healing authority, we should pray in his name whenever we are sick. But we need to recognize that God often chooses not to heal us. Some day “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Rev. 21:4 NIV). But we are still living in a fallen world, where disability and disease are part of God’s curse against sin. Eventually all our prayers for healing will be answered, but this will not happen until Jesus comes again. Furthermore, God often uses our physical difficulties to do his gracious work in our lives. The life of the Christian follows the pattern of the life of Christ, in which suffering is the road to glory.

Among other things, this means that we can never make our health the test of God’s love. Often Jesus has a work of healing to do in us that goes much deeper than our bodies. In his commentary on these verses, Michael Wilcock imagines what Jesus might say to us when he chooses not to answer our prayers for healing. Perhaps he would say something like this: “I could of course give you immediate relief; but I would rather take the opportunity to do something more far-reaching, which will be to your greater benefit in the long run. You will find it more protracted and perhaps more painful, and you may not understand what I am doing, because I may be treating disorders of which you yourself are unaware.” And what would Jesus do then? Wilcock says he would “set to work to deal with the needs of the whole person, rather than with the obvious need only. He may aim at a calming of spirit, or a strengthening of courage, or a clarifying of vision, as more important objectives than what we would call healing. Indeed the latter may not be experienced at all in this life, but only at the final ‘saving and raising’ of the sick, when their mortal nature puts on immortality.”

In his healing work as our Great Physician, Jesus is concerned for the whole person—body and soul. Often he uses the hurts of the body to bring healing to the soul, much the way a doctor uses deadly chemotherapy to kill a cancer. Sometimes we wish that God would just hurry up and heal us. If he doesn’t, it is not because he doesn’t love us, but because he is working a better plan. In the meantime, we need to trust him to do his total work in our lives.

As you prepare your heart for the Lord’s Day worship in your local church tomorrow, consider Jesus, the compassionate and gracious Savior who knows your deepest needs—both body and soul.

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So begins the second chapter of biblical counselor Shannon McCoy’s very helpful mini-book HELP! I’m a Slave to Food. She continues:

Perhaps you don’t believe that overeating is a sin. Many of us have been brainwashed by magazine articles, television talk shows, and reality shows that tell us that food is the problem: you are simply eating the wrong things in the wrong way. Often even the Christian perspective views overeating as a diet problem rather than a sin problem. On the other hand, you may know that overeating is a sin, but it does not seem serious because it is often treated as one of those ‘little sins’ that are acceptable in the church. You don’t hear sermons or read books on the sin of overeating. Your focus is more on getting treatment for your problem of overeating than facing up to your personal responsibility of repentance and obedience. According to the above descriptions of sin, overeating is of folly, not of faith. It is failing to do the right thing. It is unrighteousness and lawlessness. The following is a testimony from someone who struggled with overeating: “My eating was out of control. I ate solely to satisfy whatever craving I was having at the time. As a result, my health was suffering and I was not honoring God with my life and body He had given me. I was for the first time confronted with the fact that the way that I was eating was sinful. I knew that my eating was ‘not good,’ but I never considered that my eating was sin.”

In her mini-book, Shannon transparently identifies with her readers by acknowledging that overeating once dominated her life. She then shares the life-changing counsel from the Scriptures, which changed her life, beginning with admitting the seriousness of her sin problem.

Overeating Dominates Your Life When…

“Overeating is a life-dominating sin, and it has a strong influence over your life. It affects your mind, your body, your spirit, your heart, your emotions, your relationships, and even your finances. The sin of overeating is practiced repeatedly so that it becomes a habitual lifestyle and almost second nature, a continuous action that controls your life…let’s look at a few characteristics of the life-dominating sin of overeating.

1. You Have Repeatedly Tried to Stop. “You’ve tried every diet known to man, but failed to stop habitually overeating. The root of your problem is that you are not taking this sin seriously.”
2. You Blame Others or Circumstances for Your Failure. “The world may teach you to blame your mother for your sinful eating habits because, when you were a child, she forced you to ‘clean your plate’ at every meal. You may blame it on your genetic makeup…you may blame your diet plan. You say, ‘It did not work for me. It is too strict.’ You may even blame your sin on God because he will not change your circumstances, your cravings, and so on. You completely disregard what the apostle Paul says in Romans 14:12: ‘So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.’”
3. You Deny that Overeating Is a Sin. “You believe what the world tells you about your overeating problem. You believe that your problem is really low self-esteem, or that you actually have a disease. You refuse to accept that your actions are sinful and do not glorify God. You call it a weakness instead of a sin.”
4. You Convince Yourself that You are not Enslaved to Overeating and ‘Can Stop at Any Time.’ “You must admit that you are in bondage to the sin of overeating. Jesus teaches, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34). You believe that you are in control of your eating habits every time you start a new diet plan or workout program. You are deceived into believing that this plan will deliver you. a life-dominating sin requires the work of the Holy Spirit in order for it to be put to death in the believer.”
5. Any Pleasure from Overeating Is Short-lived, while the Harm Is Considerable and Long-Term. “You feel as though you have no control over your cravings. You give in to the temptation to eat repeatedly. You see your body weight increasing and feel your clothes tightening. You get depressed because you don’t like the way you look. Your blood pressure is getting dangerously high, and your knees hurt when you try to climb the stairs to your apartment. Nevertheless, you find yourself stuffing your face again with massive amounts of food and not receiving the relief you are seeking.”
6. You Overeat when No One Is Watching. “When overeating controls you, you will seek to hide your outward behavior by doing it in secret….Hiding your sin will only lead you into deeper bondage. You must realize that there is power in confession. James 5:16 states, ‘Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.’”
7. You Know that Overeating Obscures the Testimony of Jesus Christ in Your Life and Is a Stumbling Block to Others. “To commit sin and know that it is damaging the testimony of Jesus Christ can lead you more deeply into slavery. You must know that your sinful actions are affecting everyone around you: your husband, children, coworkers, unsaved relatives, and friends. You cannot admonish and encourage others in their walk with Christ when you are purposefully committing sin in their presence. They see your helpless struggle with overeating and may deny the power of Christ in their own lives.”
8. You Know that God’s Word Tells You to Stop Sinning, and that God Can Release You from this Bondage. “Pride and rebellion are at the heart of your problem. Perhaps you have been a Christian for a long time and you know that God is not pleased with your gluttonous behavior. But you continue to ignore God’s command to glorify him when you eat (1 Corinthians 10:31). You refuse to trust in God’s faithfulness and accept his way of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13).”
9. You Realize that Your Deeds (thoughts, words, actions) do not Conform to the Character of Christ. “Your conscience accuses you of your sin. Your behavior doesn’t conform to the character of Christ. Without telling a bold-faced lie, you cannot say that your gluttonous behavior is Christlike. You know in your heart that your behavior is not pleasing to the Lord. You know that your desire is to please yourself.”

Overeating Is Not an Addiction

Some overeaters label themselves “food addicts,” believing they are addicted to food. However, addiction is not a biblical term. The world uses this terminology to describe the behavior of someone who is controlled by a substance. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines addiction in this way: “To devote or surrender (oneself) to something habitually or obsessively.” But the danger in labeling overeating as “addiction” is that it undermines the personal conviction of sin. If the problem is not sin, then you will look for solutions in a system of theories, not in the person of Jesus Christ.

Overeating Is Idolatry

The biblical term for “addiction” is “idolatry.” The sin of overeating is idolatry. Idolatry is worship and devotion to creation rather than worship and devotion to the Creator God. You worship your stomach and appetites by indulging in food. You desire the created food more than your Creator. The problem is not necessarily the food you consume; it is the worship of your heart. Before you can be set free [from the sin of gluttony], you must acknowledge your idol, denounce it, repent, and give your heart and devotion to him. Your greatest hope is in turning from your false gods and surrendering your life to Jesus, who is able to forgive your sins and free you from the sin of overeating.

God’s Grace Empowers Us to Change

Romans 6:12-14 both exhorts us to repent of the sin of overeating and gives us hope on God’s power to change us. “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

In the remainder of her mini-book, McCoy teaches us how to conquer the sin of overeating by God’s gracious empowerment for disciplined living.

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However, there is another element to Christ that I must deliberately meditate upon, which helps me in the daily war against performance-driven Christian living. This focal point for meditation is the finished work of Jesus on the cross for the full accomplishment of my redemption. Every aspect of my salvation is dependent upon what the Lord Jesus did on my behalf as He endured the Father’s wrath against my sin. It is all of grace. When I deliberately think upon this truth then I will be confidently living in the acceptance that is already mine in Jesus, rather than anxiously striving after an imaginary acceptance that seems to elude my heart of unbelief.

This morning, I got to thinking about this priority again while reading another chapter in Encouragement for Today’s Pastors: Help from the Puritans, by Joel Beeke and Terry Slachter. Here, while affirming the practical nature of Puritan preaching, the authors provide illustration from one of John Flavel’s sermons on the cross, specifically Jesus’ declaration that “It is finished” (John 19:30). After Flavel preached the doctrine derived from the text, the authors point out that the other half of the sermon then “offers these practical inferences drawn from the doctrine.” There are six mentioned.

1. Comfort: believers need not fear condemnation for all the imperfections of our works for God;
2. Warning: trusting anything besides Christ for our justification is dangerous to us and dishonoring to Christ;
3. Hope: if Christ finished His work for us, then He will finish His work in us;
4. Exultation: rejoice in this finished work and the way of justification by faith in Christ alone;
5. Imitation: if Christ worked, then all Christians must labor to glorify God by hard work; and
6. Exhortation: strive to finish the work God gives you before death closes your life.

When we intentionally focus on the finished work of Jesus on our behalf then we enter the realm of spiritual rest that God intended for us. Truly, Jesus is our Sabbath. Let us choose to enter His rest (Hebrews 4:1-11).

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Part Two of Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry provides another heart-searching opportunity for self-counsel. Its focus is on the ease at which we are prone to lose our awe of God by forgetting who He is. As a result, we begin to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think (Romans 12:3), and forget who we are, resulting in the development of distorted views of ourselves. Tripp writes, “we are all susceptible to having our definition of ourselves formed by the carnival mirrors that are in every ministry person’s life. Remember, no mirror that you look into to know yourself will ever show you with the clarity and accuracy of the mirror of the Word of God.” The author then suggests four “carnival mirrors” that we as pastors tend to look into.

1. THE MIRROR OF MINISTRY KNOWLEDGE: “Biblical knowledge is a vital, essential, and irreplaceable thing; but it must not be confused with true faith or personal spiritual maturity. Faith is deeply more than what you do with your brain. Knowledge is an aspect of faith, but it doesn’t define faith. Ultimately, faith is an investment of the heart that leads to a radically new way of living your life. Spiritual maturity is more than maturity of knowledge. You can actually be mature in your understanding of God’s sovereignty but live a life of fear, because in your immaturity you have attached your security more to your control than to God’s wise rule.”
2. THE MIRROR OF MINISTRY EXPERIENCE: Here Tripp means “that pastors tend to go through good and bad seasons of ministry. So all of this experience makes you feel that you’re mature; but it can be a dangerous and distorted mirror to look into….If all that was needed to form maturity was a certain amount of experience, not only would there be many more mature people, but Jesus would not have had to come. Experience will teach you some things, but it simply has no power to make you holy.”
3. THE MIRROR OF MINISTRY SUCCESS: “If our human ministry efforts are not propelled by God’s powerful grace and applied by the Holy Spirit, they will be for nothing. It is Christ and Christ alone who builds his church. This is humbling stuff because it requires us to admit that we have no power whatsoever to change anyone…So ministry success always says more about the Lord we serve than it does about us.”
4. THE MIRROR OF MINISTRY CELEBRITY: “The people who are exposed only to your public ministry persona, your books or Internet blogs, and your voice when it is in a conference or on a DVD are functionally incapable of giving you an accurate view of yourself. You must take their congratulatory words as well mean but lacking in accuracy and, therefore, spiritual helpfulness.”

Tripp concludes with this warning to us: “Pastor, do you examine yourself daily by humbly placing yourself before the one mirror you can trust, the mirror of the Word of God? Or have you fallen into the habit of looking into carnival mirrors that will only ever give you a misshapen view of where you are in your personal spiritual journey?”

All of this reminds me of Paul’s ministry conclusion in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

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Lord, help me as I face each day
With trials great and small,
For discouragement comes easy,
I often stumble and I fall.

For as I trod this beaten path,
It seems around each bend
Is one who wishes to destroy
And bring me to my end.

When I think on things untrue,
Not honorable, pure, or right;
I only please the evil one,
I become my enemy’s delight.

Lord, break me from this vicious cycle.
Turn my downward thoughts to Thee.
Lift up my head and fix my gaze
On YOU, not selfish me!

Help me learn from every trial;
Lord, teachable may I be!
Forsaking all my sin and pride,
Knowing YOU more intimately.

May all I do and think and say
Be excellent and worthy of praise,
My focus on You alone my God
Through all life’s different days.

Help me to see Your goodness, Lord,
For what You’re doing and what You’ve done.
For all is sovereignly ordained,
Every day, yes, every one!

So as I trudge this rough terrain,
May I praise Thee and be thankful.
For I realize my cup is not half-empty,
Now I see it as half-full!

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This morning, after spending some time looking for attributes of God in the Psalms, I again picked up Encouragement for Today’s Pastors: Help from the Puritans, by Joel Beeke and Terry Slachter. Chapter 5 is entitled “Submission to God’s Will” and is excellent. The authors draw from the book of Job, demonstrating the submissive heart of this great man of God.

The following quote is especially helpful as it includes 4 self-counseling questions for our times of sorrow and loss.

“The Lord gave us everything. Job said later, ‘Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?’ (Job 2:10). So respond to trials and tragedies by remembering God’s generosity in everything He has given you. Faith in God’s sovereignty helps us to submit to God. According to Caryl, faith is a sword that can slay four monsters of the sinful heart: discontent, envy, pride, and contempt. So in times of loss or sorrow, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Are you discontent, feeling you have too little? Submit to God, knowing that He gives you your portion with a Father’s love. Is your Father not wise?
2. Do you envy others for having more than you? “The Lord gave.” Doesn’t He have the right to do as He pleases with His possessions? Does God have to ask for your permission? Is it wrong for God to show grace to someone other than you?
3. Are you proud because you are abundantly blessed? All good things are gifts from God, but if you obtained your riches by dishonest or violent means, they are the devil’s gifts that will be cursed by God.
4. Do you look with contempt on those who have less than you do? “The Lord gave,” so He could as easily have given them more than you, for He gives freely.”

Though this book is written specifically for pastors it is filled with wisdom for all of us. If you are interested in getting a copy for yourself, or your pastor, it is available in softcover or e-book from Reformation Heritage Books.

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