Recovering Faithful Participation in a Therapeutic Age – Series Page
Phase 1 – Reading the Waters We Swim In
What does God do for my emotional well-being?
A Man of Many Hats
I spent decades serving as an evangelical pastor. Looking back, “Larry the Minister Guy” was expected to fill many roles. Preacher, teacher. worship leader, counsellor, mediator, career advisor, financial coach, mental health support, spiritual director. The truth is, many of us simply aren’t equipped for everything people expect of us. In the past, professional counselling and psychology were often viewed with suspicion in the church, dismissed by some as “worldly wisdom.” As a result, pastors frequently stepped into situations for which we had more compassion than competence. In doing so, inspired by a desire to help and support, I wonder how much we contribute to assigning the role to God as a therapist.
A Changed Landscape
Looking back, I don’t write those words as a criticism. I write them as a confession.
Today, mental health professionals are more widely respected than they once were. A trained therapist offers something many pastors were never trained to provide. Helping people process trauma, understand relationships, navigate anxiety, or develop healthier emotional patterns is valuable work.
In fact, I’ve come to appreciate those professions far more than I did in my younger years. Therefore, this article isn’t about criticizing therapy. It’s about asking a different question.
What happens when we begin to imagine God primarily through a therapeutic lens?
The Centre of Gravity
Every culture teaches us how to see long before we realize we’re looking through a particular lens.
- Ancient cultures often imagined gods as tribal warriors.
- The Enlightenment imagined God as a distant watchmaker.
- The Industrial Age often pictured God as a great manager or engineer.
Our therapeutic age increasingly assigns the role to God as a therapist.
I don’t believe most Christians consciously make that decision. More often, it happens beneath the surface of our awareness. The culture around us shapes the questions we ask before we ever open up the Bible. It influences what we hope God will do, whether we fear what He might allow to happen or even what we expect a healthy Christian life ought to look like.
This doesn’t mean our culture is entirely wrong. Every age notices something that’s true about human experience. Our own age rightly reminds us that emotional wounds matter, trauma leaves deep scars, and caring for our mental health doesn’t mean we’re weak or a failure.
The difficulty starts when one cultural lens becomes the primary lens through which we understand God Himself.
A therapist’s attention naturally centres on the person sitting across from them. Their work is to listen carefully, understand your story, help you process pain, and encourage healthier ways of living. That’s good and honourable work!
Scripture, on the other-hand, introduces us to something larger. The biblical story doesn’t start with my inner world and understanding. It begins with God. That’s something I often have to remind myself of and bring into my present perception. Why? Because I don’t always think and feel this.
Scripture says God hears our cries – but I don’t know how God does that so I choose to trust that He can. Scripture says God comforts the brokenhearted – but I don’t know the workings of it. The Bible says God heals and restores – but I don’t understand the direct or indirect nature of that. The invitation of Scripture isn’t simply for God to enter my story. It’s for me to discover that my story has always existed within His.
That single shift changes everything.
- Prayer becomes more than processing emotions.
- Scripture becomes more than personal encouragement.
- Church becomes more than a support group.
- Discipleship becomes more than self-improvement.
The question slowly changes from:
“What can God do for me?” to “How is God inviting me to participate in what He is doing?”
God’s Invitation?
If you’ve ever participated in a Bible study based on Henry Blackaby’s Experiencing God, you might remember one of its central questions:
“Where is God already at work, and how can I join Him?”
A friend and I co-led that study at church way back in the early 1990’s. Very soon after I attended Bible college to earn a Theology degree and began ministry as an Ordained Pastor. For many years, I found that question helpful. It shifted my attention from asking God to bless my plans and encouraged me to look for His activity instead.
I still appreciate that perspective.
Yet in recent years I’ve found myself asking a deeper question.
Not only, “What is God doing?”
But, “What does God’s faithful presence look like here?”
I believe there’s a slight difference in those two questions.
When we think about joining God in what he’s doing, we can look at it like some significant opportunity, the next ministry or the next place where something extraordinary is happening. It’s natural to assume participating must involve some visible value or identifiable influence.
However, Scripture paints a more grounded picture. Over and again, God meets regular people, in ordinary places; tending sheep and fields, gathering grain, mending fishing nets, sharing meals, walking dry, dusty roads, faithfully serving their households and neighbours. God’s kingdom rarely announces itself on IMAX 70 mm film using the language of optimization and personal significance wrapped in glitz and glitter. More often, it grows silently, almost unnoticed.
Perhaps participating in God’s faithful presence isn’t about finding spectacular moments. Instead, it’s more about recognizing God’s presence in life’s ordinary, daily moments. I confess, as much as this challenges me, the invitation remains the same:
How is God inviting me to participate faithfully today?
That question still doesn’t solve the mystery. Actually, Scripture rarely answers every “why.” It leaves blanks we’re tempted to fill in. Rather than satisfying our curiosity, it leaves gaps; gaps that invite us to trust God instead of trying to explain the mechanics of how He works.
As modern readers, that can really frustrate us! It does me. We like certainty. We prefer clear strategies and measurable, observable outcomes.
Rather than complete explanations, the steady presence of the One repeatedly declares throughout Scripture:
“I will be your God, and you will be my people.”