The sun is shining brightly, a hawk is soaring smoothly through the air, and on a chair opposite me a cat is quietly sleeping after a hard (and unsuccessful) night of hunting down mice. How placid things seem at the moment! But they are hardly so. Somewhere a family is fighting, a child is disciplined at school, a worker has just lost his job. Someone is dying. Tranquility is wonderful while it lasts, but in a world of sin it doesn’t last very long! Indeed, some would say that trouble is the norm.
Well, of course! Adam sinned. You sin; I sin. How can there be peace and quiet in a world of sin? It isn’t normal to expect the normal to take place in the abnormal! This isn’t how God designed the world to operate; we are living in abnormal conditions. The world is askew. It was designed as a paradise, but in many ways reflects the terror of an eternal hell. Sin—man’s rebellion against a gracious God—has caused the problems you face every day.
Is there any way out? Not in the sense of leaving it behind. No, you must continue every day to face a world in disarray. But you can have peace in the midst of turmoil. It will be a peace of heart and mind that Paul says can pass understanding! It’s a peace that begins with trusting Christ as Savior, thus making peace with God. But it’s also a peace of heart that comes from being at peace with others as well.
Yet, often these two conditions are far from ideal in the Christian’s life. He may have made peace with God, but he is still reaping the fruit of his previous rebellion. His present life is still greatly influenced by the corruptions from the previous life that remain. With Paul, he doesn’t do what he wants to do, and does what he doesn’t want to do. There is struggle. Successes? Yes, but failures too. He wants to live peacefully with God and his fellow man. But his imperfection is obvious every day as he finds himself not doing so.
What can be done about this? Counseling can help when things get so bad that he doesn’t know how to extricate himself from them. Galatians 6:1ff puts all Christians in the business of helping those who are caught in sin. We are all called to be counselors. Some do more of it than others. Some do none at all. Surely, this balance needs readjusting. At any rate, since you are called to counsel, you must learn how to do so. In these columns, along with other topics, from time to time we hope to give you tips that will help you become more proficient in counseling your brothers and sisters in Christ. Keep visiting us—we’ll try to keep the columns, I mean posts, up to date!