Newsletter April 2011

We are.......

a charitable organisation dedicated to helping those in need of emotional and spiritual healing.  We aim to provide non-judgemental counselling based upon Biblical principles, helping individuals to come to a place of permanent, positive change in their lives.

Sitters -in Programme

We have two sitters-in at the moment on our programme.  This programme provides prospective trainees with the opportunity to check out whether counselling is for them or not.  Read more about this programme on our Training page.

Degree Course

Our three counsellors are now almost two thirds of the way through their degree programme.  This has been challenging with the extra workload required alongside existing commitments.  However, we will hopefully reap the benefits in the future.  It has also been, dare I say it, enjoyable for its own sake in that it has stretched us intellectually!

Waiting List

Our current waiting list remains at around 5/6 months.  This is not ideal but is an indication of the need for the service.  

What does Dove do?

Our last newsletter started a series, in an abbreviated way, describing the work of Dove.  We outlined a definition of Christian Counselling based on Biblical principles and its underlying philosophy.  If anyone missed this and would like to read it in full, it is available on our website.

Briefly, to reiterate, we operate from a Biblical perspective of God and mankind.  This is our underlying philosophy.  Our worldview therefore takes into account God’s Creation, the Fall and His ultimate plan for Redemption.  This throws light upon why we human beings can struggle in the ways that we do and offers a solution or theory of change dependent upon God Himself, His love and His plans.  This is unique to true Christian counselling and involves the application of Biblical principles to the counselling process to help effect healing, restoration and change. 

Following on from our last Newsletter, and our focus on the Biblical Principle of Forgiveness, this time I thought it might be helpful to explore the Father Heart of God and how a true understanding of this concept transforms lives.   

 The Father Heart of God 

God's Father Heart longs for us.  He longs for an intimate relationship characterised by trust and childlike faith.  Consider the story of the Prodigal Son.  While the son was away, the Father spent His time looking out for him returning and longing after him.  When he did return, there were no recriminations, no guilt trip or condemnation.  There was just unconditional love, restoration, blessing and rejoicing.  Do we see God like that?  Are we confident that our Abba (our Daddy) loves us and longs for our company?  Or do we live under a sense of disapproval; a vague feeling that we just don't measure up to God's requirements and we must try harder, do better?

This concept of God's perfect Fatherhood is one that most Christians struggle with at some point in their lives.  Perhaps their experience of an earthly father and/or authority figures was far from perfect and it has coloured their view of God the Father.  Perhaps their father was absent completely, sometimes even through death.  Their expectation is of judgement or disinterest rather than love and acceptance.  This can be evident in how they are living their lives.  They can be caught up in self-defeating patterns of trying to appease an angry God or trying to please a critical God.  This is an exhausting cycle of trying and failing.  It can also become focused on receiving others' approval as an indication that things are going ok.  We can therefore feel ok if others seem to approve and like us and are devastated if we sense disapproval in any form from others.

This distortion in perspective has to be corrected if we are to enter into the rest that God has promised us through relationship with Jesus.  We sometimes describe the distortion as a filter through which we see God, ourselves, others and the world.  This filter is made up of our life experiences, social background, education etc.  Often we do not realise that these things are influencing us and causing us to make assumptions about God, ourselves and others that may not always be accurate. 

At Dove, therefore, we spend time examining people's filters in the light of God's Word to see if their belief system lines up with God's Truth.  Sometimes people need to be helped to see that believing the Truth is actually a choice and not something that needs to fluctuate according to our feelings on a particular day.  Sometimes they may need to forgive people who have hurt them and influenced their perceptions of themselves, others and God.  Sometimes there is a need to repent and receive God's forgiveness for their wrongs to set them free to relate to Him as He really is.  It is as we choose to bring our thinking and our lives into line with the Truth as revealed in the Bible that we open the door to the intimate relationship that God longs for with us.

In the book ‘The Papa Prayer’ by Larry Crabb, the author describes this intimate relationship in this way:-

"God has given me what I call the PAPA prayer as a way to get so close to God that He actually lives His life through me.  And that idea is very different from trying to control God or persuade Him to do certain things for me.  Prayer now feels less about asking for something and more about enjoying someone.  I haven't met many sons or daughters who were (or are) as close to their fathers as they wanted to be.  Given what I know of families, your father was probably not the sort of person you would call Papa.  He wasn't (or isn't) a man you longed to draw close to.  But you can't stop wishing he were.  Or maybe you were one of the fortunate few.  Like mine, your dad deeply loved God.  God held first place in his heart, which meant that he could love you all the better.  And perhaps there were depths in your father's hidden being that you longed to enter.  But you never did, either because he was too private to let you in or you were too scared to make the effort.  Whatever your background, you and I have this in common: we all wanted, and still want, a papa.  We dream of the perfect papa.  We yearn for a strong man  we can count on to be there for us, to want us, to look after us, to delight in us; someone we want to get close to, a lion of a man who invites us to draw near to him and rest in his powerful but gentle love.  Well, we have one.  His name is God.  And like the best Papa we can imagine, the sound of His footsteps, if we know who's coming, inspires exuberant joy, not cowering fear.  And when we hear His voice and feel His hug, all is well.  We're safe.  Papa is here.  What can go wrong?” 

Client Testimony

The quote below from a client expresses how he felt when he finally began to connect with God’s Father’s heart towards him.

The emphasis in the parable of the prodigal son is often completely put on the younger brother and the message of complete forgiveness.  However, there is  far less talk about the older son.  What I have begun to understand and what has made such a difference to me is bound up in the story of the elder brother.  He was in some ways equally as far from his father as the younger son.  He was someone strict who obeyed rules, but he never enjoyed the gracious loving fellowship with his father which he could have done.  I have realised a few things about myself.  I have concentrated on rules and on being 'good'  in many ways.  I realised that in my inner insecurity and underlying fear, I had retreated to the apparent security of a life of rules and quite a bit of judgementalism.  I had equated this with a 'spiritual' or 'good' Christian life.  But what hit me was that this mindset had become a way of, in some way, controlling God; keeping Him at bay, as it were.  I sensed a new possibility of something far riskier, but far more deliciously enjoyable and wonderful - that I could sort of know God, indeed love Him.  I had to reject my previous mindset of control via rules and doing what is 'right', and I just needed to come to God and say "I need You; I'm sorry for how I've been; I just need You".  I can say that since then  I have known a new joy in my heart, indeed the inexpressible joy which Peter describes in 1 Peter 1:8-9 – “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls”. 

I have the Spirit of God living within me and I know that indeed I am a child of God, as Romans 8:15-16 says "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of Sonship, and by Him we cry ‘Abba, Father’.  The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children”.  This is the basis of my identity, the glorious presence of God within me.  Basically, I have opened myself to knowing and, indeed, loving God.  "We love because He first loved us" 1 John 4:19.   

(A book which impacted me in this was 'The Prodigal God' by Timothy Keller) 

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 Memorable Quote

"You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you," said the Lion." C.S Lewis ‘The Chronicles of Narnia