Have you ever met counselors to whom you want to say, “Counselor, counsel thyself”? I’ve met quite a few. Such counselors seem blissfully unaware of the multiple unaddressed and unresolved problems and issues in their own lives and yet are going around trying to be experts in helping others.

That’s why one of the first things we do in my Foundations of Biblical Counseling course is have students complete the DISC personality test. I usually invite one of my friends, Dr. Peter Newhouse of Winning at Home, to administer the test and interact with the students’ findings.

But why start a Biblical Counseling course with a personality test?

Because I believe that one of the keys to counseling others well is being able to counsel ourselves well. Self-counseling is the best training for other-counseling. I am convinced that the best counselors of others are those who have learned how to counsel themselves first of all. I agree with Martyn Lloyd-Jones who said that the secret to the Christian life was to “learn how to preach to yourself.”

Even secular counselors such as Freud understood the necessity of this, apparently devoting the last hour of every day to “understanding himself.” Collins points out:

Freud believed that as a first step in becoming competent, the counselor must develop “insight into the … unconscious layers of his own soul.” To achieve this goal, he recommended that all counselors be analyzed by a trained therapist. While this suggestion has been rejected by most modern psychologists, it is generally agreed that self-understanding is a very desirable counselor characteristic…By knowing about ourselves, we are better able to evaluate and control our own behavior, and we can more fully appreciate the feelings and actions of our counselees. The counselor who has not faced up to the problems of his own life, his own methods of evasion and self deception, his own rationalizations will have little understanding of these devices as they are employed by others.[1]

The best counselors understand themselves, their personalities, their hearts, their strengths, their weaknesses, their limitations, their vulnerabilities, etc., and are taking appropriate steps in response. While not infallible, personality tests can assist in this process because at the very least they help raise our awareness of our strengths and weaknesses, whether we are more introverted or extroverted, how we learn, what we value, how we come to decisions, etc. That in turn begins to breed self-knowledge and humility, vital components of any counseling ministry.

They also help us understand the complexity and variety of human nature, especially if we do this personality testing exercise in a group setting and listen to others’ findings and responses. One of the greatest problems I’ve noticed in young (and not-so-young) pastors and counselors is the tendency to think everyone is like oneself, and that what works for one person will work for everyone else. Personality tests reveal the incredible diversity of humanity, even in a class of reformed seminary students, and encourage a more prayerful discernment in listening to counselees’ stories and in responding wisely to their needs and problems.

The most effective counselors I’ve come across are those who are counseling themselves first and most.

I began my Christian ministry class yesterday by taking my students through the qualifications of a pastor, focusing on 1 Timothy 3:1-7. Among all the details of the lecture, I tried to emphasize three main ways to look at the qualifications.

The Three C’s

First, there are the three C’s: Character, Conduct, and Competence. The most important qualification for a pastor is Christian character. Without this we are disqualified. Conduct comes second, that is the outward life of godly living that flows out of a godly character. Third is competence, that is the abilities and skills required for ministry (public speaking, administration, time management, leadership, decision-making, etc).

Sadly, in the modern church, the greatest focus is on competence, with little attention paid to conduct and even less to character. In his pastoral theology, R. C. Anderson commented:

During the course of each school year dozens of inquiries come across my desk regarding men who are being considered by churches and mission boards. I am supposed to rate those individuals according to qualifications that are specified in the reference form. Without exception, each inquires as to the abilities of the person being considered, his personality traits and the talents of his wife. Rarely does a questionnaire deal with character traits.

The Bible insists on character first, conduct second, and competence last.

The Lens of Self-Control

Another way of looking at the qualifications is through the lens of self-control, one of the key characteristics of a mature Christian. For example, the requirements of 1 Timothy 3:1-7 could be presented as:

• The husband of one wife: self controlled in sexual matters.
• Temperate: self-controlled in behavior.
• Sober-minded: self-controlled in thinking.
• Not covetous: self-controlled in use of money.
• Not given to much wine: self-controlled in use of addictive substances.
• No striker: self-controlled in conflict.

Of course, this is not really “self-control” but is better defined as “Spirit-control.”

The Lens of Relationships

As a former PRTS student highlighted, we can also frame the qualifications around the various relationships that a pastor must maintain.

• Relates well to himself: self-disciplined, calm, patient, gentle, not addicted, not thin-skinned
• Relates well to his family: healthy relationships with his wife, respected by his kids, well-0rdered family
• Relates well to the people in our church: good reputation, accessible, hospitable, good communicator, peace-maker
• Relates well to people outside of the church: good reputation outside the Christian community, loves the unsaved
• Relates well to God: a man of God who serves in faith and our of love, filled with the Spirit, reverent, faithful to the Gospel.

Three ways to look at pastoral qualifications that keep the focus on the most important areas – character and conduct.

Perfectionists struggle to get their work done on time, mainly because of the false belief that everything has to be done flawlessly.

Allan Mallinger’s addresses this in Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by offering the following advice.

1. Instead of telling yourself “It’s got to be flawless,” tell yourself “No, it’s got to be completed!”

2. Focus on how good it feels to make progress on a task rather than continually judging whether the work is good enough.

3. Draw up a realistic schedule for the work, remembering that ideal performance and conditions will never happen.

4. As each checkpoint arrives on your schedule, move on to the next part of the task regardless of how good your work is to this point.

5. Each time you start getting sidetracked by details or with thoughts on how the work will be evaluated, stand up, take a deep breath, re-focus on the goal, and move forwards.

Imagine yourself swimming down a river, with the current, toward a goal. You have to arrive there before dark, or it will be too late. Whenever you get sidetracked by details or fine points, envision yourself losing the current and drifting slowly out of the main river into a stream, and from there into a never-ending maze of smaller and smaller streams. They are seductive and interesting, but you lose momentum when you investigate them. Get back into the main river and move into the central current again! (57)

6. Aim for average.

If certain tasks daunt you because you dread having to meet your own standards of perfection, it may help to imagine what a B-minus student, writer, attorney, or radiologist would accomplish. Force yourself to perform only that well, in the interests of accomplishing the task. You’ll be amazed not only by the amount of work you’ll produce, but also by its quality; it won’t suffer as much as you think. You’re not a B-minus worker, and that will show through, no matter what you do. And with fewer trivial details to obscure them, your main points will carry more force and be clearer. (58)

7. Practice for #6 by doing as many little B-minus exercises as you can – whether it’s writing an email, painting a room, cooking, mowing the lawn, etc.

8. Do your work in short, structured periods of time rather than long, open-ended sessions. Mallinger says that “Many of my patients accomplish more in a few two-hour blocks per day than in an unplanned eight-to-nine-hour workday. The quality of their work is every bit as good, and they have far more free time.” He concludes:

Do the finest piece of work you can, given the limitations of deadlines and the legitimate requirements of your health, family, social life, and leisure pursuits. Remember that all of these dimensions are crucial to your enjoyment of life.

Previous posts on Perfectionism and Control: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

I will be as the dew to Israel. (Hosea 14:5)

Dry, dry, dry. Have you ever felt like that? Has your soul ever seemed like a desert? You look at the wastelands within your soul and you can’t find any bud or blossom, never mind any fruit. There is no refreshing, encouraging oasis anywhere. It wasn’t always like that. You can remember a time when there was bud, blossom, and fruit everywhere. There was a little oasis here and a little stream there. Spiritual life and liveliness flowed in your blood and all was well with your soul.

What happened? Well, many things happened, didn’t they? But the more important question is, how do you get out of this? We turn to Hosea to find the answer.

God gave Israel the land of Canaan as promised, a land which flowed with milk and honey. Under His blessing, they had known many years of fruitfulness and fertility. However, their disobedience had brought them and their land under the divinely promised curse. God withheld water from the land and the result was desert-dryness everywhere.

But, when this divine chastisement had humbled Israel and brought her to see her need of the Lord, He promised He would return with His dew. “I will be as the dew to Israel.” This is sovereign dew; God creates it, sends it, and controls it. This is softening dew; it soaks into the hardest soul and breaks the hardest clods. It is stimulating dew. It refreshes and invigorates. It is saving dew; it is God Himself who will be the dew. “I will be as the dew to Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.”

So, dry soul, look up. It is the Lord alone who can refresh you and reinvigorate you. He can make the desert sand blossom into a rose. Each of His three Persons can drench you with dew. Even one of His attributes can saturate your soul. Just one of His words can break the hardest clod. “Lord, come, beautify and fructify me with yourself.”