Ep. 170 Learning to Trust God While Caring for Others

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Shows Main Idea – I was supervising one of our Mastermind students, and she was sharing about how she struggles with speaking the truth to those whom she disciples. Her concern was that she might say the wrong things, which could lead to hurting the individual. I made a mind map for her, which served as an outline to think about this issue.

Show Notes

Helpful Resources

• Ten Things to Know Before You Can Help Someone
• How to Help a Person Get Right With God
• Discipleship Is Mostly about Prayer and Prophecy

The Mind Map

Outline

Ultimately, you cannot mess up anyone. If you could, it would mean that you are a more powerful force in someone’s life than the Lord. Grace has broad borders, and God’s empowering favor is expansive enough overpower anyone’s sin or poor communication. You must believe this practically.

Knowing that God’s grace is more significant than all our mistakes is not a call to be sloppy in our soul care endeavors. We study hard and love well, but, ultimately, we must rest in God’s grace to prevail in a person’s life.

With that said, even the careless counselor is not more transformative in a person’s life than the grace of God.

Hidden Motives of the Heart

What you must do is get underneath the hidden motives of the heart that would tempt to paralyze a person from speaking the truth. Here are some possible culprits in the counselor’s soul.

• Control – “I do not want to lose the friendship, which points to a lack of trust in the Lord,” which is the idol of control.
• Fear – “I do not want to upset the individual,” which is the idol of fear.
• Comfort – “I don’t like drama, and if I speak the truth in love, it may cause ongoing issues between us,” which is the idol of comfort.
• Self-reliance – “I seek to avoid hard relational issues by taking the role of the peacemaker,” which is the idol of self-sufficiency.
• Unbelief – “I don’t have the God-given insight to walk a person through issues,” which is a form of disbelief–not trusting the Lord to bring change.

All five of the heart idolatries are interrelated, and you could even substitute some of them out, as in, they are interchangeable. I have laid them out here for you individually so you could see and interact with them since there is a slight nuance between each one.

The Goal When Discipling

• Trust God when helping others.
• Speak what you believe the Lord wants you to say.
• Rest in what you’ve said.

Active Repentance

To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. – Ephesians 4:22-24

To move from the heart idolatries and to the goal when discipling, the student will have to actively repent of the things that hinder her from cooperating with the Lord in the soul care of those within her sphere of influence. The straightforward “put off and put on” construct from Ephesians 4:22-24 would be as follows:

• Control – I must put off my desire to control while resting in the one who has all control.
• Fear – I must move my relationship with God from fear-based to faith-based when it comes to caring for others.
• Comfort – I must realize that discomfort could be the Lord’s way to mature me. Though I’m not pursuing potential trouble, I must not run from it.
• Self-Reliance – I have to repent of my self-sufficiency, which would begin my trusting the all-reliant one.
• Unbelief – The biggest culprit of them all is my unwillingness to trust the Lord. I must change.

The Faith Killers

There are three reasons I cannot change, and I must discern, unpack, and resolve them in proportion to their control in my life. The reasons I am willing to do things my way rather than God’s way are anger, fear, and ignorance. Read my article on the faith killers.

• Anger – I am not able to trust the Lord if I have an unresolved disappointment with Him in some way.
• Fear – I am not able to trust the Lord if I am fearful of Him in some way.
• Ignorance – I am not able to trust the Lord if I am not aware of all that He can do for and through me.

If you struggle similarly to my student, I appeal to you to share this podcast, mind map, and show notes with a friend, and you both start working through these things together.

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Rick Thomas

Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.

In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).