Nouthetic counseling answers “no”. In fact, it says we can assert no rights at all if we are truly offering ourselves as living sacrifices. I never went through Nouthetic Counseling myself, but I saw the above question addressed, along with a whole other list of “rights”, on a worksheet that, according to Nouthetic Counseling, we do not have because we are living sacrifices. The worksheet, which I saw sitting out on the coffee table at my ex’s when I dropped my son off for visitation, said “I surrender my right to: ” and listed things such as love, a safe environment, food and shelter, and a happy family. I was appalled, and not altogether happy to be leaving my son with a woman being told she had no right to be loved. I actually brought this to my therapist as a concern, and surprisingly (as a secular therapist with no ties to Nouthetic Counseling) he said for my ex, this might be what she needs – to challenge her attitude of entitlement. Either way, he asked why I was making it MY issue, so I thought long and hard about that.
After some introspection and an unfortunate decision to solicit input from my friends on Facebook, I realized why it bothered me so much. I had experienced the effects of this line of thinking when being called to remain in my marriage, even though it was destroying me. It was the dehumanizing idea that being a living sacrifice means emptying ourselves of any desires we have. A desire to not suffer? Sinful. A desire to be loved? Sinful. It’s a loss of identity: the idea communicated to an abused spouse is that he or she only exists to be oppressed for God’s pleasure. This simply doesn’t square with a God who is so concerned for us that He became one of us. It doesn’t square with a God who repeatedly tells us His Word by using individuals with dreams, hopes, and desires. It doesn’t square with the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, who empathized with people at the core of who they were.
I also realized the framing of the question is all wrong. I’ve never asserted I had a “right” to anything. I am not entitled, and I’ve never thought I was. However, I do know I was created with a NEED to be loved, and not just loved by God but loved by other people. Why would the law be summed up as loving others if love from other humans wasn’t a need God put in us? Can I be a living sacrifice to God and still desire love, a safe environment, a happy family, and all of the other things on the list? Desire and pursuit are not the same as entitlement. Did Paul ever give off a sense of being entitled to life? Yet clearly he pursued life as he was snuck outside of Damascus in a basket.
After my previous post on justice, I realized how much the definition of justice as “giving people what they are due, whether punishment or protection or care” conflicted with the ideas of Nouthetic Counseling. In the Nouthetic view we are “due” nothing, and to say differently is displaying an attitude of entitlement. But in God’s repeated calls for justice, His perspective is different. He desires for us to be elevated when there is injustice – not only does he desire it, but he commands the church make sure it happens. We don’t look at fellow humans as deserving of Hell and therefore due nothing – we look at them as image bearers of God who should be treated with love and respect. And as an image bearer of God myself, I know He wants that for me.
The relationship to God is pictured as a father to his children. The idea of “no right to love” is not even remotely close to the way I frame my relationship with my son. I desire very much for him to be loved, and not just by me. Is my son in error for desiring me, as his father, to give him hugs, read him bedtime stories, and kiss all of his wounds when he falls down? Maybe his 3 year old mind sometimes feels he’s entitled, and I work at correcting that, but I hope he always knows that, as a father who loves him, I want him to pursue those things and know that I desire to give them. I would never tell him “you do not have the right to a hug before bedtime” and I’m delighted every time he asks.
Finally, it is a HUGE bait and switch to present to people the Gospel as being loved perfectly and individually by God and then later go back and preach at them that making that decision means they no longer may desire love, shelter, health, or happiness (or freedom from abuse). How many people sign up for that? If you want those kinds of followers, at least make sure they know they are buying into it when they sign on. My faith does not have such a dehumanizing view of faith and service.
So if someone tells me I do not have the right to be loved, my answer will be “I am not asserting my rights, I am telling you what I know God wants for me and am pursuing those things. God wants me to be loved, safe, sheltered, and in a happy family. I may not get all of those things because this is a world marred by sin, but I know God desires them for me”.
A Cry For Justice 
Hmm. This reminds me of a Keith Green song, Trials Turned to Gold.
“…Forsake my dreams, my self esteem, and give up all my rights.”
Anyone remember that one? I always had a problem with that line.
I’m not too sure I agree with the counselor’s assessment even for your wife. She did need her attitude of entitlement to things she’s not entitled to challenged. But she still has the same basic rights we all have. It’s the things she thinks she has a right to but doesn’t that needs to be challenged. As the adage goes, your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins. I don’t think the solution to that is to toss the concept of personal rights altogether.
And yes, the framing of the question is wrong and is self defeating. How can it be possible for us to have a responsibility to love others (if they don’t have the right to be loved, why do we have a responsibility to do it?) but apparently no one has the responsibility to love us? Why the double standard? By definition the law grants people rights, namely the right to have others do to us what the law tells them to do, and we have the responsibility to do the same to them. We do not suddenly become exceptions to the law on the receiving end — especially if we are held to it on the giving end — or the law means nothing.
Take driving, for example. I absolutely have the right to expect the people with the red light to stop so I can go. I also have the responsibility to go on green. Thus people can all get where they need to go safely. If I did not have the right to expect the red side to stop but still had the responsibility to go on green what would be the inevitable end and how would it be adjudicated? It is simply preposterous to say no one has any rights at all. It is even worse to say you don’t have any rights but everyone else does and you have the responsibility to honor their rights. The problem comes when we usurp someone else’s rights, not that we claim the rights we actually do have.
And besides, how can you give up something you don’t have, anyway? How could you give up a right if you never had that right to begin with?
The assertion of personal rights is called Boundaries and we all have and need them. This should be obvious.
Worst of all, the abuser is quite in line with thinking the abused has no rights at all, so when we say we have no rights we agree with our abuser, not with God.
Very well stated, BIT!
I especially like this:
Very true!
BIT, nice post. To clarify the position of my therapist, I really think he just wanted to move me off of thinking about what was good or not for my ex and think about myself. So “maybe its what she needs” is more of his way of saying “let it go- she’s not your problem”.
I’ve thought a lot about the right of an abusive person to be loved- when someone destroys all those who try to love them, they’ve taken God’s desire for them and trashed it. I think of an abuser who beats his wife, and then when she leaves says “but I have the right to be loved too”. What is his “right” at that point? I don’t know- I don’t have an answers for this other than I know he doesn’t have the right to be loved by his victim.
That is a good point, Jeff. In keeping with the law and justice theme perpetrators do indeed give up their rights so maybe I should amend that. I’ll have to do some more thinking on this.
Jeff S. – It sounds like your conclusions are similar to my own. My position is “that is no longer my responsibility.”
A very good post, Jeff S.!
I like how you differentiate between rights and needs.
I think American culture, in particular, is often over-focused on rights. This may be, in part, due to the wording of foundational historical documents such as The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States. Many Americans seem to believe they have an essential right to do anything they choose, and nobody has the right to interfere.
While it may make sense to challenge such perspectives of entitlement, it does not make sense to ignore people’s basic needs, or pretend the needs do not exist or are unimportant.
I especially like this:
Thank you for sharing!
Joe, now you’ve broached the question of American culture, I’ll utter a secret thought I’ve had for decades. I have always felt uncomfortable about the American Declaration of the ‘right to the pursuit of happiness’. Now of course, I’m not disagreeing with the thrust of Jeff S’s post. It’s a great post. But the problem with the American cultural elevation of the right to pursue happiness is “Who gets to define happiness?” Obviously any abuser can define happiness as “Whatever feeds my ego and serves my selfish and sinful whims.” And as BIT pointed out, the problem with that view is that someone else’s nose may get crunched.
It seems to me to be a shallow, wooden and immature way of looking at life to say ‘we all have the right to pursue happiness’ without putting in something about the value of behaving for the common good. As an Aussie, having cultural roots that come in part from the British Empire (which for all its faults had some virtues) the idea of the commonwealth – the common good, what is going to be of benefit for our whole community – is an important factor and one which I think rightly brings balance, much needed balance, to the elevation of personal entitlement which the American founding document gave.
Now you can all throw rotten tomatoes at me for being anti-American. Hey, I’ve had that epithet thrown at me before, so I guess I can take it! (sigh)
I think they may have clarified the pursuit of happiness issue in the Constitution’s preamble with “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
I think your concern about the common good would have been understood in “promote the general welfare.”
For people to use pursuit of happiness as whatever I want irrespective of who I hurt is, I think, quite contrary to our founding fathers’ original intent. But then, abusers do have their ways of abusing everything, don’t they?
Barbara – Actually, I have always felt a bit uncomfortable with that phrase of the Declaration of Independence, as well, for the same reasons.
Interestingly, it appears the founding fathers struggled with this phrase, themselves, as this was one of the most edited phrases of the document. At one point, it was worded, “life, liberty, and happiness,” but was changed a couple of times before winding up, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The final version is definitely better than the original draft, but still doesn’t quite hit the mark, in my view.
Isn’t that funny. I never even thought of the Declaration of Independence going through many drafts, like any other piece of good writing. How dumb of me!
Really interesting what you said about how they were tinkering with the wording.
I guess because it is such an iconic and venerated document, I don’t think of it having been subject to debate or editing. The adulation that Americans are taught to have for The Declaration of Independence is extraordinary (from my naive viewpoint as one down-under).
Barbara,
It is so refreshing to hear how America looks from another worldview. I think sometimes Americans (including myself) escalate the country on principle, while at the same time across the world we are often thought (on credible basis) to have too little principle.
An evangelist from Brazil came to our church a month ago, looked at our congregation, and said “Do you realize that Brazil looks up to America for what to do?” He continued to elaborate, reminding us how America is the world leading producer of pornography, that abortion is now a normal medical about which the nation has lost conscience, not to mention the endless appetite for illegal narcotics driving an entire world drug network. He said, simply, “would you people just STOP IT!” Over the past five years, I have heard similar remarks from Brits, Europeans, Israelites, Pakistani, Indians, Chinese and Japanese.
Regardless of the intent of our founding fathers when they wrote “pursuit of happiness,” many people around the world now look at the United States and consider it the model of an extremely sinful, self-destructive but totally self-interested pursuers of happiness.
It’s very healthy to challenge our own presuppositions. Hopefully, one day this nation might once again get back to the intent of its forefathers.
Thanks, again, for your insight.
In Christ,
Martin.
Now that the “right to pursue happiness” has redefined marriage in America … I am ready to move to Australia.
So excellent! So true! I experienced this type of counseling, as well, and I had the hardest time worshipping and loving a God who created me to have a need to be loved and, at the same time, refused to give it to me and insisted I understand that I don’t have a “right” to be loved, protected or cared for. It was a cruel God and I almost threw everything out. I remember crying out to Him on a walk in the dark one early morning about 3 years ago, coming off of a nouthetic counseling session and I said, “If this is Christianity, I don’t want it. You can have it. I’m done.” Jesus spoke clearly to my spirit that morning, telling me that this was NOT, in fact, Christianity, and, if I searched with all my heart, I would find Him and, in doing so, find truth that sets free. That was the beginning of my journey. Nouthetic counseling starves our hearts from receiving a God-given need and, in turn, creates merciless monsters who can coldly look a person in the eye and say, “You don’t have a right to be loved.” Jesus would never utter such words…. He would only offer love. Thank you for posting this.
Yes — very good point.
What a beautiful, truthful, heart-felt comment, Megan!
Thank you for sharing your experience, and for standing against such a warped twisting of God’s grace!
I agree with Joe- great comment, Megan. Your experience in your walk mirrors a moment I had myself- actually many moments of soul searching trying to make sense of my faith.
I also almost threw everything out, too- but that was a good purging for me, and I’m so glad to see what was taken away from me gone.
Thanks guys. I also had another thought this morning. One of my sisters is very much a believer of nouthetic counseling. She regularly attempts to bust through my boundaries, becoming angry if I protect myself. Because she doesn’t believe we have a “right” to boundaries, she has no qualms about pressing through other’s boundaries. Nouthetic counseling also produces a rather terrorizing audacity in others. When I switched counseling programs from nouthetic to a more balanced philosophy, one of the first books we read was on boundaries. This book had been touted as “unbiblical” by my earlier seminary so I felt very guilty about reading it. Boundaries are flippantly crossed by proponents of nouthetic counseling, leaving people terribly vulnerable to more than just the counselor. Setting sweeping boundaries was one of the best things I ever did. Just another cracker into the pot. 🙂
Hmm. So nouthetic is basically against boundaries? I wonder then if these nouthetic people ever lock the doors on their houses or cars? Or whether they take their car keys with them when they leave their cars or do they leave them in an unlocked vehicle? Do they put their stuff in a locker at the gym?
Do they put passwords on their computers? Do they have doors on their bathrooms and bedrooms?
Wait a minute. If they don’t believe in having rights, what in the world makes them think they have the right to be heard?
BIT — I believe it sort of stems from passages like 1 Peter, where Jesus is described at beaten and murdered and yet he “says not a word.” He was “led like a lamb to the slaughter”. Jesus’ sacrifice is pressed upon us and we are told to be the same and this is their definition of sacrificial love. I think we’ve touched on this before in earlier posts. It is sort of a “life lived to be beaten and abused” that is near-honored in some circles. Setting up boundaries is considered self-protective which is sinful, according to nouthetic counseling.
So true.
Setting up boundaries is considered self-protective which is sinful, according to nouthetic counseling.
Got it. I just wonder to what degree they are hypocritical about this.
Very true, and well stated!
First off, I think boundaries are HUGE. It was one of the big take-a-ways for me from the time I spent at “family week” at the mental hospital, and then also after reading “Boundaries” by Townsend and Cloud (though they take a no-divorce stance, if you follow their views to the logical conclusion I think you have to view divorce as an ultimate, and healthy, boundary).
The elder I most respected at my church (he was also my Bible study leader) once told me he didn’t see anything about boundaries in the scripture. The irony is that he was a wonderful model of boundaries- such a good model that I was convicted by it. I hadn’t seen a marriage like his portrayed so powerfully (and being friends with two of his daughters they confirmed that his behavior toward his wife behind closed doors was consistent with his public image). I say this because his wife would directly contradict things or question things he’d say in Bible study, and he never once betrayed any emotion of trying to “control” her. He recognized she was her own person with her own views, and if they disagreed then that was part of growing in grace. He was the same with his children- he was fiercely against certain kinds of literature, but when his teenage daughter was old enough to make her own decisions, she read what she chose and he didn’t rebuke her. Every single member of his family was a delight to be around, smart, and independent. They all had good boundaries.
So when he came at me with “boundaries aren’t biblical”, I was thoroughly surprised. I think for those who don’t have people attacking their boundaries, they don’t see boundaries as an issue. It all comes back to creating doctrine from a place of privilege and make rules for things that aren’t your struggle.
Excellent!!
Thinking about this…I find it alarming that a biblical scholar would say he saw no basis for boundaries in the Bible.
What about the many, many OT exhortations to build up the city walls? To stand in the gap? To defend the walls?
If walls are not boundaries, then what are they? It could hardly be clearer!
Then, in Revelation, we are given the very clear picture of Jesus saying, in reference to hearts of Christians, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock…”
This is our Lord and King standing at our heart’s door, patiently and respectfully knocking, asking to be let in.
If my God and King shows such high regard for my personal boundaries, what would make anyone else think they had the right to disregard my boundaries? Or what would make me think I had the right to ignore somebody else’s personal boundaries?
There is a HUGE difference between being asked to open the door versus being told I have no right to a door.
AMEN!
Hypothesis:
Maybe nouthetic counselling was developed to combat entitlement thinking in abusive Christians? Could it be that Jay Adams was (almost unbeknown to himself) trying to find a way to hit the abuser-entitlement thinking between the eyeballs? And thought he’d found the key principle to ALL biblical counseling?
(When I say abusive Christians, I mean abusers who profess to be Christians but are not in fact regenerate at all.)
If that’s what nouthetic counseling was developed for, but it was applied with appalling lack of wisdom to ALL Christians who had problems of any kind, then it’s a train wreck of the worst proportions. It’s the equivalent of the BBC having given extensive support to Jimmy Saville, that celebrity who’s now been revealed as a pedophile with hundreds of victims.
Barbara, I think there’s a very good chance you are right, or at last very close. When all you have is a hammer, you treat everything like its a nail.
Also, this would fit with your above post about the pursuit of happiness. Entitlement is definitely an issue here in the US and I’m sure Adams was responding to that.
That makes SO much sense, Barbara!
No, it wasn’t developed to use against entitlement thinking. It was developed because Adams and others like him did not approve of using secular counseling methods (psychology).
From the NANC website:
Taking his cue from Romans 15:14 Adams concluded, and then contended, that it was the believer who was filled with both goodness and the knowledge of God’s Word who was truly “competent to counsel.” Those who sought to counsel from a secular psychological stance or even a “Christian” psychological stance were usurpers whose wares were to be driven from the house of God.
BIT, when I first looked into Nouthetic Counsling as my church was suggesting my wife go, I thought I read that the catalyst that got Adams started on thinking along these lines was his observation of patients in the system not being healed because they wouldn’t take responsibility for their issues. This was a while ago the I looked into this stuff, so I could be wrong, but I thought that’s what drove him to look into scripture for a more biblically sound method of healing the psychologically wounded.
Hmm. I don’t know. NANC didn’t go there. They just focused on the secularism of psychology.
No. If you read Adams’ “Competent to Counsel”, or Powlisons’ history of the movement “The Biblical Counseling Movement” you will find that Comrade Adams was attacking a secular psychology that he thought did not believe in sin or any type of morality and that thought individual problems were ALWAYS due to abuse. He wanted, instead, for everyone, everywhere and always to take complete responsibility for their actions: situations do not cause anyone to act in a particular way, Christians always have the ability to chose the right course of action! (Adams belongs to a new U.S.S.R.–Union of Strange Scripture Read(ing)ers).
Thanks Wayne for setting me straight on that history.
Thanks, Jeff S. This is just one of the many issues that I have had to grapple with since coming out of the fog. As usual, these teachings start with a kernel of truth but end up being misapplied, leaving victims of abuse with heavy yokes to bear.
Wow, this totally flies in the face of all the teaching on love in the bible. We are to give it but not get it? Then why did Jesus die for us? Wasn’t that for love?
This post has my mind going. The Bible doesn’t use the term “boundaries.” However, it is written for all to see. So, we see what is expected of us, and we see what to expect of others. So, for example, not only are we commanded to love one another, we see that others are given the same command. We aren’t just told not to steal, but we see that we are being wronged when we are stolen from. And I guess that is like being given a boundary.
Matthew 18 tells us what to do when we are offended. We are to go to the person etc. It doesn’t tell us we should never be offended since we have no right to expect anything from anybody.
One question. How are we to understand these verses in Matthew 5 in light of this discussion?
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’[f] 39 But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. 41 And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.
I think this is an excellent question, and I’ve been pondering it this afternoon. I’m certainly not a bible answer guy, but I have a few observations:
-we know that we are not to be completely unresistent to evil people, as we have examples of the apostles seeking freedom (as I mentioned, Paul being lowerd in a basket out if Damascus)
-Jesus is contrasting an “eye for an eye” attitude: you take from me, I will take equal from you and that is just.
-Jesus is calling us to be sacrificial in our dealings with our enemies
So when I put this together, I think we have the idea that we are not to seek vengeance or even exact payment from those who have wronged us. We are to forgive them. In fact, we are to forgive them so much that we sacrificially give to them. As I write this I think about God’s forgiveness for us- he could have just wiped away our sin and the penalty of death and it would have been more than we could ever deserve, but he not only wiped away our debt, but gave us blessings on top of that.
I’ve said before that when I think about forgiving my ex, I think in terms of what she owes me for the pain she caused. My answer: nothing. There is nothing she needs to do to “balance the scales”, and in fact I have worked very hard to give her more than just a balanced ledger- but I really don’t want to go into those details. Suffice to say I have to be very careful about enabling or allowing myself to be manipulated, but when God has provided opportunities to give, I do (I don’t think all situations have these kinds of opportunities- we all work with what we have).
But wiping away debt is different from opening myself up to future attacks. Just as Paul fled persecution when he could (but submitted when he could not), I think Jesus is not asking us to submit to endless persecution if we can escape it. I also do not think he is asking us to ignore laws that were put into place in order to protect the general population (such as the prosecution of child molesters).
I do think God calls us to give up the perceived “right” to persecute those who hurt us- God may want a lot of things for us, but I don’t think vengeance is one of them (unless he is the one doing the vengeance).
Thank you. Those are good thoughts to mull over.
Truly, Paul stood up for himself when he was about to get flogged as Roman citizen, right?
I think the Holy Spirit begs the question, what is for the greater good in each situation. Not MY good, but the greater good? Even Jesus ducked out of sticky situations until “his time had come”. How did he know? H.S.
In thinking about 1 Cor 13 … and deserving to be loved. What IS love? Well, SOMETIMES it is rejoicing in the truth – God’s truth – which, the receiver might not perceive as “love”. How did Jesus “love” the Pharisees?
Lots of tough questions. Hard to know what TRUE LOVE really looks like in the heat of, or in the stress of an emotionally charged situation. Sometimes, only time can reveal God’s truth in certain situations.
As for 1 Peter, remember it was providentially written TO an oppressed audience (who had NO RIGHTS) who were about to be burned down by Nero. They needed to have their faith intact as they only had a year or two left before seeing Jesus’s face. Prophetic love!
UPDATE Sept 2021: I have come to believe that Jeff Crippen does not practise what he preaches. He vilely persecuted an abuse victim and spiritually abused many other people in the Tillamook congregation. Go here to read the evidence. Jeff has not gone to the people that he spiritually and emotionally abused. He has not apologised to them, let alone asked for their forgiveness.
***
People who have been to seminary, like Jeff C and Martin, may want to jump in here. But as far as I can recall, scholars think that the ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ precept was given to limit the extent of the punishment/ penalty for a violation of the criminal code in ancient Israel. Like most Mosaic case law, it expressed a principle by giving examples. God expected the judges and elders in Israel to apply to principle with wisdom to situations similar to the example that Moses gave.
So, if one person knocked another person’s tooth out, the judges could order that the assailant’s tooth be knocked out as a fair and just punishment, but they could not order that his leg should be cut off. That would be giving a heavier penalty for the crime than the crime warranted. So the ‘eye for eye’ precept is to put a fair limit on the severity of the penalty, and so restrain the human tendency to go overboard with vengeance.
No need for me here. Barbara, as always, is right on target.
Jeff,
This is a great post, fitting the general theme of others here related to Nouthetic Counseling. I agree that Nouthetic Counseling is a horrible approach to counseling victims. This is well documented in your post and elsewhere on this blog. But, what about the abusers?
It would seem that indefensible behavior like beating your spouse and children would call for a good exhortation and some Biblical rights refinement – both of which are the foundations of Nouthetic Counseling. How many abusers reported on here would have been better addressed by a pastor that exhorted the abuser firmly, chapter and verse, for their wretched, sinful, faith-denying behavior?
My point is this. The Bible calls for exhortation on occasion, so exhortation itself cannot be the problem. The problem is merciless Pharisees who would rather take the submissive victim down further as opposed to the courageous task of exhorting an abuser.
Real leaders defend victims with everything they’ve got, including exhortation of the abuser. Self-serving minions of the Devil choose instead the easier route – to drive the submissive victim further into the hell that is their daily life.
What do you think? Nouthetics for abusers? Or, no?
Thanks,
Martin.
Martin, you can see from my response to BIT above that I don’t have any real concrete answers. My therapist (who is not a Christian) at least considered there may be merits of this type of counseling (as far as he understands it, which is based on my potentially flawed explanations) due to one of the fundamental issues of the abuser being an attitude of entitlement. Having said that, I currently lean toward “no” due to this- do we think that a person can be a full out unrepentant abuser and have the Holy Spirit residing in him or her?1 If the answer to this is “no”, then no amount of counseling is going to address the real problem- the person needs a heart change that can only be given from the Holy Spirit through regeneration. In this case all Nouthetic Counseling would appear to do is to try to make a sinner try harder not to be a sinner.
1I must admit I still struggle with “all abusers are unregenerate”, so don’t hold me too close to my line of thinking. I still want to believe in my heart that it is a combination of sin and mental illness that caused my ex to behave the way she did, and maybe if the illness is treated enough for her to understand her sin, she will repent and be healed. Even in that case, I don’t think Nouthetic Counseling has that much to offer. But these are issues I am hopeless to be rational about- it is the woman I married and wanted so much to spend my life with we are talking about- even if the best for her cannot include me, I still want the best for her.
I so understand where you are coming from here, Jeff. In nouthetic counseling, we learn that a person can repent, be forgiven and change in a heartbeat. That God can and will do such miracles. And that, if we leave, we are not loving that abusive spouse….we are not, somehow, giving God a chance to change him / her. I believed this for way too long, hoping against hope that he would change. Finally, a wise friend pointed out that, by my allowing him to continue abusing the children and me, I was not actually loving him at all. Megan + [name redacted] = abusive relationship. I had become the evil TO him — the Enabler. 😦 This friend also showed me that God does not normally (I tread softly here) do such an instant change….that He allows us to struggle through, grow, wrestle. Even if [name redacted] was truly repentant (which I don’t believe he ever was), there were a good 10 years of unraveling to do — to unlearn behavior, etc. By then, my children would be grown and ruined. In the end, the most loving choice for him and my children was to go.
[For safety and protection, the name was redacted. Editors.]
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this Jeff. I know these are tough issues – especially in the face of great emotional pain. God bless you my brother!
I agree, Martin. See the comment that I just added above.
Megan- I came to the same concusion as you without a counselor but with lots of prayer. I was in an abusive relationship with a man for 3 years and finally realized that the kindest and most loving thing I could to for him was to leave. I was allowing him to continue to pile up sins on his soul by allowing him to continue to abuse me. I truly believe if I had stayed he would have killed me in the end. I can say quite honestly that I still love him. We have been apart for over 7 years now and I am happily married with a husband and children I adore. But I still pray regularly that he found the answers and help he needed and now has a life as blessed as the one God has lead me to. I have no contact what so ever with him so I do not know where he is in his walk. I do know we were a combination that was bad for both of us so I had to leave him in God’s hands – after all that is where we are all most safely entrusted.
I think abuse in a relationship is a very clear sign – this is WRONG for both of you. God does not want the life of an abuser or a victim for any of his children.
Jeff S. — I cannot say how good and timely this article is for me. Great differentiating between rights and needs and also in stating that God knows we need love. I keep saying to Him, “if it is not Your will for me to ever be loved on this earth, then I will be okay with that, because You are enough for me, Lord”, but I -feel- some amount of loss and pain when I say it to Him. I guess I have been taught and believe now, that God does not care if I am loved by anyone, because I believed that whole “you have no rights, nor are you entitled to anything other than suffering” teaching. Your article opened my eyes.
We are His image-bearers and that is what makes us “good enough” or “deserving” of love and honor. When we are abused by others, God in us is being abused as well. Maybe I need to look a little more at my situation, in that light. Thanks for a great post.
but I -feel- some amount of loss and pain when I say it to Him
Anonymous,
I don’t like to talk for God, but I can’t help but think that feeling may be the Holy Spirit sharing His grief with you over that idea. I do not think the idea that He does not want you to be loved on this earth is something that could possibly be, given His character. Could it instead be Him saying, “I know why you think that but please don’t think that way. That idea really doesn’t represent Me at all. I want so much better for you than that.”?
Anon — God gives you a robe of white and a crown for your head. You are His beautiful one. He desires for you to be loved in this lifetime — He made you this way. Jesus can and does bestow on you a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. (Isaiah 61) He loves you….ADORES you, even. Allow Him to give you such beauty. It is His desire.
Anon – You are of such great value that Christ gave His own life to redeem you. Your knowing you are loved is of such high priority to God that Christ gave Himself up for you.
Please, don’t let anyone convince you that you are unworthy of love, or that God does not want you to feel loved. You are so incredibly precious in His eyes!
Anonymous- I am so glad this post has given you a better perspective on God’s love for you. He absolutely cares and desires that you be loved.
And thank you for your encouragement.
Oh – another piece of the puzzle for me. I never heard the name “Nouthetic” but I have certainly been subject to that line of reasoning over the years.
Sometimes it is referred to simply as “Biblical Counseling”.
Jesus had very healthy boundaries. Hundreds followed him, hoping he would heal them. Did he heal them all? Scripture says that he left the crowds and got in a boat and rowed into the middle of the lake to be with his Father. When he was weary and in need of nurture, Jesus went to the home of his dear friends, Mary, Martha & Lazarus. Scripture doesn’t indicate at all that he healed everyone. I’ve taken comfort in this, realizing that it is healthy for me to also learn how to say “no” and to take care of my own needs for rest & nurture in order for me to be able to minister to others.
Every child that is born has a right to be loved by his parents. As perfect parent, God loves every one of his children. What greater love could he show than to send his perfect son to die for us?
I have always wondered how Nouthetic counselors can believe that they can counsel those with emotional needs by only using Scripture, when they have no problem going to the doctor or dentist who tend to their physical needs using no instruction from Scripture at all!
Yes H.U.G., and isn’t that such a handy line for abusers to use to prime their flock with, so that whenever anyone puts their hand up and says “I’m being abused” the preacher can say “But you have not rights anyway, so quit complaining!” – which is what they say front of stage, but back stage they give the covert whisper to the victim “…and you gotta let me keep abusing you because ya can’t criticise me: I’m God’s anointed leader!”
Is anyone familiar with the book, “Healing Life’s Hurts through Theophostic Prayer”? It just seems off.
Here’s some examples:
Hi Anonymous100
I’m not familiar with that book but here are a couple of comments I’ve made on other threads in this blog, relating to Theophostic Prayer or Theophostic Ministry.
An Open Letter from a Pastor to Pastors
What happened when you finally told your abuser it was over?
Jeff, thank you AGAIN for leaving up these earlier posts. And thank you again for addressing a subject that has destroyed so many of us.
One of the most common ways of witnessing to others is touting the “love” of Jesus. Yet once many of us accept Him into our hearts–we are told that we are not to expect to see or feel His love on earth–but only when we get to heaven. We are also expected to give all the love inside of ourselves away to others–even to those who claim to be of God but are of the devil. I want to weep with all the hopelessness and waste that has been my walk with Jesus for the majority of my life because of this type of teaching.
This part, “I do know I was created with a NEED to be loved, and not just loved by God but loved by other people.” Jeff, this is so very FUNDAMENTAL! I NEED TO BE LOVED BY OTHER PEOPLE! It’s so fundamental and so evil when it’s taken away from us that 2 Tim 3 addresses it first. It’s WHY the end times are so VERY HARD! “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves…” They ONLY love themselves–there is NO love for others including family or spouses or country or anything.
When I came to the understanding of the meaning of this passage of scripture (2 Tim 3) I knew that it is ONLY because of God working in my life that I had any wisdom or knowledge of Him. Since this horrific discovery that we are in the end times and that I’ve never been loved by anyone in my life except one child, I realize that I would’ve probably chosen a completely different life for myself, if given the option. It would look something like this:
I’d have been born to parents or a parent who loved me, wanted me, had planned for me and were wealthy. I would live in a community where all had the ability to love other people. In my “perfect” life I would also be highly educated with wonderful teachers and everyone would be in good physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Notice that in this perfect life I would have no need of or room for, God. He would be, at most, a peripheral character on the outskirts of my life.
But who am I kidding–why bother with God when I am full up with everything else in my life? It’s why the Bible tells us, “Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Luke 18:25. Many times people with plenty money have more choices and access to things that people who are poor don’t have. Ecclesiastes 7:12, “Wisdom protects us just as money protects us, but the advantage of wisdom is that it gives life to those who have it.”
Thank you again for addressing something that is so important to a Christian’s life and so necessary–the “right” to say that we need to be loved by our brethren. Our love for each other should be a signifier of our faith.
Anonymous commented:
The hardest realization today was understanding I have never been loved. When I was married, nouthetic counselling would only have led me farther into an unknown pit.
If a baby is not loved, they will not thrive. At what magic number do the nouthetic counsellors assume this changes? Or do they assume the change occurs when the ring slips on the finger?
I know this has been addressed many times on the ACFJ website, but the nouthetic counsellors are not being logical, nor are they following any Biblical precedent. Nowhere does God say marriage is always the exception.
According to nouthetic counsellors, I was unknowingly following my “non-rights”.