Monday, January 18, 2010

Soul Care #3: Change Happens in Relationships

Assumption #1-- Behavior is Purposeful

Assumption #2: Change happens in relationships.
Real change doesn't happen alone. It is lived out in relationships with others. Relationships got you in trouble, and relationships will heal you. In the incarnation, we see that God redeems by sending Himself. The Trinity also is about relationships--God in relationship with Himself. If I am made in His image, then I am made to be connected with others and to Him.

How do you measure how much trouble someone is in? Is it harming their relationships? It needs attention. Are they living in the truth and telling themselves the truth about their relationships? Unhealthy people have unhealthy relationships and don't tell themselves the truth.

So my question is...
How do you speak the truth to someone who is not living in reality and doesn't want to hear the truth? My thought is first, you have to be a person who lives authentically in relationships yourself! (So much easier to see it in someone else, don't you think?) Then, I'm thinking a good counselor could winsomely surface the need that draws someone to hunger for the hard but loving word. Your thoughts?

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