Response Paper CO105 Katie Murphy Foundations of Christian Counseling The gospel should be the foundation of Christian Counseling. We should think of it as trying to get deeper into Gods story, what He tells us and discern and understand some of what He was accomplishing through the cross. Of course it was to save us, which is truly amazing and incredible but there’s much more to it.      When we view the gospel as simply just paying the penalty of our sin, our counseling is reduced to reminding people they are forgiven and sending them out to act like it. That doesn’t help people, or make them feel understood. Justification was not the only purpose. God has a transformational purpose. He wants us to enter into a relationship with Him, to address that yes, relationships were shattered with Adam, but He has come to heal that. He wants to make us into the people He intended us to be. With that in mind, counseling becomes a source for health and growth into that person God intended us to be. It’s important for us to keep in mind Gods ultimate purpose. We need to remember that Gods glory is greater than even mans salvation. The main purpose of the Gospel is to exalt Christ and glorify God.      God created us to be a relationship centered people. To understand that can help us see grace differently. The gospel isn’t only about paying for our sins, the legal penalty; that limits grace to just unmerited favor. The gospel is about restoring relationships, at the center of it all. Grace is Gods presence as our relationship is restored by Him. Understanding that allows us to come along side people, join them in the challenges of loving God and loving others. We can look to Elihu as an excellent example of what we should strive for in being counselors. He showed acceptance, a willingness to humbly be at the same level as Job and a strong desire to point Job to God. Where others failed with their condemnation, being critical and condemning, Elihu succeeded.       There are some ways we can put this knowledge into action in counseling. A very important thing we need to always keep in mind is Gods grace.  A excellent example of how we can can be found in Genesis 3, in how God handled Adam and Eve. Firstly, God showed up. He was present, He listened and connected to them. We seek to understand, reflect back to them what we are hearing so they feel accepted. Feeling accepted has much more power than I think we realize when dealing with other people. We need to accept people where they are. Gods love and acceptance for us in unmerited favor should lead us to empower people, the same way He empowers us.       An important thing we need to remember when we are thinking of foundations of counseling is what the purpose is of counseling and what it is not. Counseling is difficult, and if we enter into counseling with the wrong goals we can make it considerably harder. Counseling isn’t about giving advice, or solving people’s problems. There will be times when you can “feel” people wanting those things. We can cause more harm than good and not be as helpful as we could be by doing those things. Counseling is hard because life is hard. Jesus said in John 12:24 “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit.”  Dying to self is a painful process. We aren’t meant to make that pain go away. That pain is part of the process, and without it we don’t bear fruit. We need that death, that being cracked open if we are to grow.       We have discussed what counseling isn’t, so we know what to look for, where we could be tempted to “fix” other people. The most important aspect of counseling is the fact that it’s a conversation. It’s a conversation fixated on one person, their life, issues and walk with God. Our job as counselor is to direct that conversation. We direct where the conversation goes, and what are good areas to focus on. We are trying to help them take a step back and really think about what’s happening. We help them to slow down and notice. It’s easy for people to live their lives on autopilot, spending more time reacting to things than being active participants in their lives. Through counseling we help with our conversations, and lay out a big Ning, middle and end, each with different purposes and goals.