Ask Not, Have Not

Hello again and welcome to Become a Competent Biblical Counselor. I'm Dr. Dave Jones, and today's issue or episode is entitled Have Not Ask Not. And the verse that I'm going to look at today is James chapter 4, verse 2, where it says very clearly, you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it. You will find in a typical counseling session when you ask people what their issue is and then follow it up with, Well, what have you done about it? Many, many, many times they will say, Well, I prayed about it. And what else have you done about it? Well, I prayed about it, and that's it. They might go so far as to say, Well, I've um I've talked to people, I I take walks, um, I um I read books, I listen to music, and they do the best that they can to come up with a list of things that they've done that justifies an answer to the question, and then eventually they will inevitably say, Well, and then I I I did all of that, and then and then I I I prayed about it. And this is a sad state of affairs because we expect people to realize, and they at at times do, but they don't do anything about it with respect to the Bible has the answers. That's the purpose of biblical counseling. What does the Bible say about the issue that you're facing? But we have a problem, and we try all kinds of things. We go on Facebook, we go on social media, we do all kinds of things, and when all that doesn't work, then we pray about it. Well, why don't we pray about it to begin with? Those of you who are Christians and really grounded in the faith, why don't we start addressing our issues and our problems and our concerns with prayer to begin with? There was a lady in our church, her name was Tammy, and Tammy had a a degree in life coaching, and she thought that meant that she was a Christian counselor. So one day at church I asked her, she said, uh, so Tammy, how you how you doing today? She says, Well, I've had a rough week. Really? What's the matter? What happened? She says, Well, I've been kind of down, kind of depressed, kind of sad. And I said, Oh, well, what have you done about it? Well, I've prayed and uh I've meditated and I've listened to Christian music, and I've just done so much, and I just can't seem to get any results with this at all. I said, So you prayed a lot, huh? She says, Yeah. I said, Well, she says, You got any suggestions for me? I said, Yeah. I said, um, why don't you stop praying? And she looked at me and she says, What do you mean, stop praying? I said, Well scripture tells you what you should do about your problem, so why don't you just stop praying and start acting? Start doing what the scripture tells you to do. You're standing around and you're praying and you're going through all the things that you think religiously that you should do, and God has told you in my word, I have your answer. Go and do it. Do what I've told you to do. You're waiting for God to tell you what to do, and He's already told you what to do. Meanwhile, you're ignoring what He says, or you're not paying any attention to what He says, or you're not sensitive to what He says, but you're going to pray and pray and pray. Now that's not, don't take me wrong with this. You can continue praying, and that's a good thing to do. But that is not the only thing to do. Dr. James Adams, in his book, The Christian Counselor's Manual, says, Christians turn to prayer as the panacea for their problems. In response to the question, what have you done about your problem? Many counselors will say, Well, I have prayed, and that is all. There can be no objection to a prayer, and indeed, if it is the right sort of prayer, it cannot but be encouraged. But when one's solution to a problem stops with prayer, then the matter must be reopened. This is a very, very crucial aspect of counseling that you must incorporate and help your counselors to incorporate in their lives every time you talk with them. And I'm going to give you some suggestions on how you can do that in just a moment. The Bible says pray, but it also gives many other specific directions. When we pray for our daily bread, do we not expect it to come floating out of the sky on a parachute? God could send bread that way, remember the manna. But he was has not told us to expect to get it in that manner. Instead, he assures us if anyone will not work, he must not eat. That means when we pray for our daily bread, we are praying for the Lord to give us the opportunity and strength to earn it. Yet in the solution to problems, many counselees seem to forget that prayer must be followed by the biblical course of action commanded. So let's talk further about the base for Christian counseling. You, the counselor, should prepare for counseling largely by prayer for you and for your counselee. Such prayer, mingled with reflection upon the counselee's problems and the possible solutions that one may find in Scriptures, probably will be found most satisfactory. But when prayer grows out of and becomes a part of intelligent thought, both its content and fervency are likely to be greater. Often God may use such prayerful thought to help the counselor to develop fruitful plans for this session. It is important to observe that prayer is one of the three determining factors in the counseling situation supposed by James. So it is clear that prayer may not be considered taboo in the counseling session. As James indicates, prayer itself may be the essential element of the counseling process. As a matter of practice, under ordinary circumstances, prayer always ought to be offered at least at the close of the session. At other times, during a session, prayer may be appropriate. It may be the natural outcome of a decision or commitment. It may be the fervent cry of the counselee for forgiveness as the word that was ministered, brought conviction of sin and repentance. Let me hasten to add this as well. There are at least two dangers to be avoided in counseling that are connected with an abuse of prayer. The first one being depending on prayer alone when the scriptures direct additional action, and number two, turning prayer into a self-pity session. So let me direct you to Philippians chapter 4, verse 9. There Paul is talking about, but in everything through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. Well, what does that mean? He's talking about prayer, obviously. But generally, there are three different types of prayer. Your counseles need to be educated by you as far as what this is. First of all, you pray in generalities. Thank you, Lord, for this beautiful day. That's a general statement. Just a general prayer. No specifics, no detail, just a very general comment, suggestion, blessing, thankfulness to God. Secondly, you pray in particulars, a certain person, a job, some event that you're going to today that's going to involve your involvement particular. Then drill down even one more step to praying in detail. Heavenly Father, I just do not like my boss. I do not like how my boss uh talks to me, how my boss treats me. Uh, I do not like whatever, fill in the blank. So we go from praying in generalities to particulars to detail. We need to encourage our counselors to do that not just on Sundays, not just when they're having a problem. They need to do that every day, all day long. Now, I pray when I'm driving my car. God help other people who think that I'm praying with my eyes closed. That's obvious, and I'm not. The point I'm trying to make is I have a conversation all day long with God. I'll walk outside with the dog and I say, Oh, Lord, thank you for a beautiful day that we can do this. And it's a general comment, but it's a thankful attitude. Then throughout the day, I'm talking to God like He's sitting in the seat right next to me, and we're having this discussion, and I'm saying, look at that guy drive like that. I hope nobody gets in his way because he's going to cause a problem. Or I can pray in particular to a person that's having a health issue and is in the hospital. Then I could even go further and talk detail. Heavenly Father, this person is going through this kind of a surgery, and this is something that the family hasn't ever experienced before. And I'm praying not only for the person who's going through the surgery, but the family who's having to endure it as well. You do these kind of things all day long. And it's just you and God. People might say, Well, who are you talking to? What an opportunity that is, huh? I'm talking to God. I'm talking to him about this, that, the other, da da da da. And if somebody says, Oh, does that work? Yeah, let me tell you what he did to me, did for me last week. And if you're going to start this kind of dialogue with God with God constantly throughout the day, then make sure that you thank him for things that happen throughout the day as well. And it's just an ongoing conversation. You might be listening to Christian music in your car radio, and you might hear a message that you didn't hear before in a particular song that you've heard many, many times, but all of a sudden you can say, Oh, God, I love that message. And pray that message back to God in the first person singular that you're going to be whatever that message is that has just touched your heart. Another thing that is very disturbing and unfortunate for a lot of people, yeah, well, I'm going to go to church and pray about this. Have you heard that before? There are people that actually practice and believe that you pray only at church. You pray with the candles. You pray with the Virgin Mary there. Please, please, please identify the purpose of prayer scripturally to the person who has that kind of belief and understanding. There's a lot that you can do. You can open up a lot of eyes and a lot of concerns about the freedoms that God gives us to talk to Him whenever and always over and over talk to God. He's waiting. He wants to hear from you. Encourage the counselees to do that. It's a new habit that they have to put on, it's a new way of living to identify with. But you know what? They've allowed themselves to get in the mess that they're in now, so why not take on something else to get them out of the mess that they're in? And I think one of the most interesting things that I enjoy watching if I have an opportunity to talk to somebody face to face, because so much of my counseling is done on the phone, and I'm not giving that that thrill. But anyway, you stand to talk to somebody, and they might say they have a particular problem, and you can ask them, so did you ask God about it? And sometimes they'll just look at you. And that's very foreign to people. What do you mean if I ask God about it? Well, God says I just referred to it at the beginning of this episode. You have not because you ask not. I mean, stop and think about that. I mean, you don't have good health maybe because you didn't ask for good health. God is just asking, waiting for you to ask. You don't have particular things going on in your life because you happen to ask God for it. And just because you ask God doesn't mean you're going to automatically get it. It might be a few hours, might be a couple days. The point is, it's not your schedule. It's his schedule. He's allowing you to go through some things, and all he wants to do is help you to grow. There's some other things that God has for the life of the counselee. The counselee's got to understand, yeah, I can't wait to find out what God's going to do with this. Well, tell God that. God, why are you allowing this to happen? He'll let you know. Because God, I just don't have a peace about what's going on right now. Well, ask him, what's going on? Give me the peace, give me the understanding. You don't have the peace because you haven't asked for the peace, you know. And the important thing is you can very innocently and very directly ask the question and make the statement. You know why you don't have that peace in your life? You haven't asked for it. Why don't you ask God for it? And then help them to determine how you do that. And you don't ask just once and that's it. You do it over and over again. You thank God that you have the opportunity and the blessings to at least be able to ask. And you don't have to go to church to do that. You can ask all day long, all night long when you're sleeping and you wake up and you're tossing and turning. Just talk to God. Just have a conversation and be blessed and be thankful for what He's allowing you to experience. He's got a better plan for you. And just always end, if you can, with you don't have what you want because you haven't asked God. I hope this has helped, and I'll see you on the next episode. Thanks.