O NE OP the most difficult things about our ministry is to see the growing number of weary, tired and unhappy people who come for help. The thing that makes it so sad is be cause it is unnecessary. The message of the Gospel is one of positive hope and assurance. It is a message of re conciliation and joy, all of which can be yours, no matter what your prob lem may be. The Lord Jesus Christ died for your problems. The attitude of heart needs to be, “Search me, 0 God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Working with troubled hearts most of the time, these folks have some body else on their minds. They come in and want to talk about the way somebody else has treated them. They usually ask, “What can I do about somebody else ?” What is really need ed is to center your attention on letting God talk to you. It is like the Pharisees who came complaining to Jesus about His disciples. They didn't appreciate the fact that they chose to eat before washing their hands. The Lord Jesus answered them by saying, “There is nothing from with out a man that can defile him, but rather those things which come out of him. These are the things that defile the man.” Think of some of the things that go into you: alcohol, dope, smoke, too much food, these are a few of the kinds of things that go into a person; But, according to Jesus these aren’t the things that de file Him. Our Saviour pointed out that some of the things which pro ceed out of the heart of man are evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, covetousness, wicked ness, deceit, lust, an evil eye, blas
phemy, pride and foolishness. That is a rather imposing and frightening statement, isn’t it? When, you say to your husband, “You make me furious,” is he putting that into you, or is he bringing it out of you? It makes a big difference because if he is putting it into you, then we will need to treat him. But if he is bring ing it out of you, then we will need to treat you. Some sobering things happened in our office a few weeks ago. In one of our case conferences, the person in charge put two folders in front of me. One of them contained case rec ords of a contact which we had had with a woman. There were also some newspaper clippings in there. A short time ago we had a sniper loose in our community. He was shooting bullets through people’s windows. Naturally it caused considerable consternation, as you might well imagine. People wondered who would be next. Then one day it came out in a newspaper that a woman had been shot and killed. The woman happened to be one of our clients about a year pre viously. She had come because one of the burdens upon her heart was the relationship between herself and her husband. She told us that they were growing farther and farther apart. The biggest current issue was an argument over how to treat their teenage son. She thought the boy should be expected to live according to the precepts of the church which they attended. He, on the other hand, took the attitude that they should be more liberal. The young man himself became a football between two par ents. The argument grew more and more intense. The husband took the position that the wife was wasting her time getting counsel from us. He 13
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