And It Came...To Pass

Hello and welcome to Become a Competent Biblical Counselor. I'm Dr. Dave Jones, and today's episode is entitled And It Came to Pass. I mentioned in some previous episodes just how important the Holy Spirit is in your counseling. In fact, I made a comment that said the most important person in a counseling situation is the Holy Spirit. So a couple of months ago, after forty plus years of counseling, the Holy Spirit impressed upon me something that I had never thought about before, and I want to share that with you in this episode. The title that I'm using today, and it came to pass, or and behold, it came to pass, or it could be Lo, behold, it came to pass. You have seen those four or five words in that format four hundred and fifty-three times in the Bible. Now obviously you haven't seen all four hundred and fifty-three, but that's how many times this connection and collection of words and it came to pass are mentioned in the Old Testament and New Testament. We read it, pass right over it, and go on. But for some reason the Holy Spirit stopped me and said, Think about these things. Think about these words, and it came to pass. So we're going to discuss that today. How valuable it is in the creation and the delivering of hope and encouragement to the counselors that you have that you will be talking to in the future. And I want to emphasize here just how important it is that you are sensitive to the fact that the people that you're talking to, the people who have sought you out, the people that have been led to you by the Holy Spirit come to you with no hope, no encouragement, disillusionment, and almost done with trying anything. This is an opportunity for you to offer hope and encouragement. And what I'm going to share with you today does that tremendously well. It's the utilization of scripture and given problems and issues that people have that bring about that hope and encouragement. And it came to pass. Let's get into it. Over and over in this episode, I'm going to be saying, and it came to pass. And it came to pass. Think about that. We all have an it. What is your it? An it, your depression came to pass. Your anxiety came to pass. Your fear came to pass. So if everybody has an it, understand the fact that that it is not you. That it is not your counselee. People will call you, you'll talk with them, you'll say, So what are you struggling with today? How can I help you today? Well, I'm depressed. A lot of times people will take that presentation label and take it as being who they are. I am Dave and I'm depressed. I'm depressed, Dave. Depression controls me. The it that I have chosen in my life to identify with is who I am. The anxiety, the it that I've identified with, is me. The point that needs to be made is that your counsel's it is not them. Now, this might be unusual and maybe somewhat difficult to comprehend, but it is not you. It is something that it's outside of you. God didn't create you with this it. This is something you've determined and accepted yourself as being who you are. And furthermore, take that it and ask yourself, what has it robbed you of? Ask your counselee, what has your it robbed you of in your life? And they're going to stop and they're going to think about what that it has robbed them. And a lot of times people have to really understand that the it is not them. The depression is something that's over here on the side. You're not it. You just allow it to come into your life every once in a while. That anxiety that you're pulling around behind you in the little imaginary wagon is not you. You just bring it along in your life just in case you need it every once in a while. It's there. It is your it. Maybe you've got more than one it. You've got depression, you've got anxiety, you've got fear, you've got indecision. You've got a whole bunch of it's that you just use into your life whenever it's convenient for you because eventually that's what you've always done. And in the process of all of this, look what all of your it's have robbed you of peace, excitement, joy, contentment, satisfaction into life. All of these things you're missing because you choose to bring along your it's. Let me say something here very quickly. I'm talking to you as though you are the counselee. And this is just an example of how you can be direct in your counseling. In fact, I'm really just talking to you as if you are the counselee, and I'm saying the you aspect as though you are someone who's called me for this kind of help. Anyway, let's go on. When you identify with your it, you lose your own identity. You lose the opportunity of identifying with the person that God really created you to be. Let me give you an example of a counseling situation I had just not long ago. In fact, this was the first counselee that I spoke to relative to this concept of, and it came to pass. We were speaking together in a local coffee shop, and this young man was 23 years old, had been married a year, and he was having some problems with his thought life. To the extent that every morning he woke up concerned and upset about his wife's past relationships before they got married. Now, he's a new Christian, and he wants to be the best husband that he could be, the kind of husband that God wants him to be, but he has no idea what that is. And secondly, he doesn't think that he can fulfill the responsibilities of being a husband because every morning he had these incredibly difficult, angry, fearful thoughts about what his wife's previous relationships were with other men before they got married. And his concern was he just couldn't get the s the thoughts to stop. And he knew that this had been going on for about six, seven months, every day. He's thinking about these thoughts, and it has ruined his identity. He's lost the identity of who he is and who God wants him to be, and he's afraid that there's no way in the world he's ever going to break out of this. He thought this was something that was going to be permanent. So I'm listening, and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit tells me, and it came to pass. And I sat there and I thought, whoa, I've got to share this. So I said, okay, let me ask you this question. You think that your thought process that you're going through now is something that you're going to have forever? He says, Yes. I said, You ever heard of and it came to pass? And he looked at me. He says, Yeah. I said, where have you seen that? Well, it was I've seen it in the Bible. I said, okay. So what do you think about it? Well, he said, not much, it came to pass. Evidently had to do with something. I said, stop and think about it right now. It came to pass. And it came. Then I stopped. I said, think about that. It came. What you're going through now is the it. The it came. Why did it come? And then I said to pass. And he sat there for a second. Didn't say a word. All of a sudden he lit up. I got it. I can't believe I have read those verses, those words over and over many times. I never thought about it that way. You're telling me that this it thing that I'm going through right now, it came, yes, it came, it's here, but it's going to pass. You mean I don't have to live like this forever? I said, No, you don't. It came to pass. He said, What do I need to do to make sure that I can learn from this? So I said, let's go over to James chapter one. Verse two. It says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. I say, what you're going through right now is God's way of saying, you know what? I've got some things that I want to do with you in the future. But I'm going to allow this to go along as long as you're going to be feeding it because I've got a plan for you. Count it all joy that you're going through this because you're going to come out of this, it will pass. This is not permanent, this is just a temporary situation to help you learn. So what God wants you to do now is to bring this to him. He's got a purpose for it. So let's look into Mark chapter nine, verse fourteen. And it says, And when he came to the disciples, he saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them. Immediately when they saw him all the people were greatly amazed, and running to him greeted him, and he asked his scribes, What are you discussing with them? Then one of the crowd answered and said, Teacher, I brought you my son, who has a mute spirit, and whatever it seizes him, it throws him down. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples that they should cast it out, but they could not. He answered him and said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me. Then they brought him to Christ, and with him immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mount. So what did they do? They brought the it to Jesus. They were not the it. The it was something else, but they brought it to Jesus. But to get through this process of fearing permanent damage to your identity, think about, and it came to pass. What you're going through came to pass. It's for the purpose of your learning something so that you can be the person that God has planned for you. He's got plans for you, but he's allowing you to go through this to bring your it to Christ. You see, Jesus Jesus did not die for you to be an it, to be a depressed person, a fearful person, an anxious person, but to be free, to be joyous, and to be saved. It came to pass. And it came to pass. Be joyous in the fact that it came, your it came to pass. It's going to go. But it's going to be in God's schedule, not yours. But this is the greatest, one of the greatest ways to elicit hope and encouragement in your counselees that there is hope. What they have to do is bring it to Christ. It came to pass. Think about that. It's a wonderful, wonderful concept that we have all read these words over and over many, many times. It's 453 times in the Bible. And it came to pass. What is the it? What is your it? Regardless of what it is, it's going to pass. I hope you enjoyed that. Stay tuned for our future episodes where we'll get into things that are even more interesting and even more so. And I'm glad that you are here. Have a great day.