A pinch of salt can ruin everything …

by 0 Comments

A clinical counseling session with me always starts with the same question for everyone I see. The question is this: “Why are you here?”

The answer to that question is profound for each person because it’s foundational to what we can accomplish in our time together.

Many people think if someone comes in for counseling, they want change.

Not always.

And when they do, it’s often not change in themselves, but in or about someone else.

Scores of people who walk into a counselor’s office do so because they’re running out of options (or have already run out of answers) to their problems. Some are willing to do whatever it takes to bring about positive change, regardless of how dramatic that may be to their own selves. Others are looking to shore up excuses, find support for failing positions, and ammunition to use against others.

Many simply don’t want to leave elements of their brokenness.

If you think that’s crazy, just look at the example of Lot’s wife, as told in Genesis 19. As she and her husband, Lot, were escaping the doom of Sodom, she looked back with longing in her eyes. That unwillingness to flee from sin was her ruin.

It’s the ruin of each person who harbors a place of fondness for sin:

“For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away,” Isaiah 64:6.

You cannot grow into the likeness of Christ (which is God’s ultimate goal for each of us) and look back with desire on your past sin. The Apostle Paul makes this admonition to us:

“But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses,” 1 Timothy 6:11-12.

Growing as a child of God requires us to run from some things, while diligently pursuing others. Where you place your focus is foundational to what you will accomplish.

Scotty