The counselling II

May grace and peace of the Lord be multiplied unto you, dear readers of “Daily Word for Spiritual Edification”!We started discussing the principles of counselling and important qualities that every good counsellor needs and began looking at the life of Jethro. When Jethro came to see his son-in-law, he saw that Moses as a leader was making some mistakes, so he decided to give him some advice. But before teaching and counselling he first listened to what Moses had to say. And we agreed that the first quality of a good counsellor is an ability to listen, not a desire to teach. If a person has not learned to listen he is not qualified to teach. Let’s look at the next passage of Scripture:

 «So Moses’ father-in-law said to him, „The thing that you do is not good. Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself» (Exodus, 18:17-18).

Here we find one more quality of a good counsellor, which is ability to not only point out the problem, but also show it from different perspective. Jethro said to Moses that he was doing a good thing, but how he was doing it was not good enough. He also helped Moses to see the deeper issues. Before giving any advice, recommendation, instruction or suggestion Jethro first helped Moses to perceive his wrong approach to the ministry. He let Moses make out what his mistake was at the moment. Jethro let Moses discover for himself the thing that could become a source of future problems for him and the people.

«..you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself» (Exodus, 18:18).

Jethro showed Moses that if the things stayed the same it could harm Moses’ health, hinder the growth of the nation, and cause many different negative consequences. He helped Moses distinguish the problem from the other standpoint – God’s standpoint. This is an ability every good counsellor needs. A good counsellor should help a person to perceive his problem from God’s viewpoint. People must first notice the problem, and only then they will have any interest in solving it. Very often we do something wrong simply because we do not believe our actions to be erroneous. So, one of the tasks of any counsellor is to open person’s eyes so that he or she can discover what actually is going on in his or her life, how God sees the situation, realize that his or her lifestyle is causing problems. It is a very important quality that we must develop in ourselves so that we can be effective in helping others.Till tomorrow! Pastor Rufus Ajiboye