This season of life has me back in school, I’m studying Counseling at UNM and it has been a great growing experience. The interesting thing about counseling is that there are many theorists who pioneered our field by claiming to know what is true of humanity, the problems that cause our disturbances, and what is needed to fix them. Many of the theorists identify half-truths in their perspectives. They are off base on a lot of things, and dead on in others…but no matter how many things they get right that are in line with a biblical worldview, they are always missing the crucial truth of Christ’s saving work on the cross—the Gospel.

Carl Rogers identifies six conditions that are necessary and sufficient to evoke personality change, and they are all dependent on the therapeutic relationship. One that always stands out to me is that the therapist must maintain “unconditional positive regard” for the client. Additionally, the therapist is to experience an empathic understanding of the client’s internal frame of reference, and endeavor to communicate this understanding to the client. These aspects of a healthy relationship echo biblical truths that I heard highlighted in Justin’s sermon on Sunday, The Church Reimagined.

Justin pointed out that the temptation we face when trying to engage with those who are different than us or who may believe differently than we do is to just dismiss them, but instead, we need to listen to them with empathy. I’ll add to that desire to dismiss and confess that the other temptation I face when considering those brothers and sisters within the church who have differing beliefs from my own is to judge them. “But we believe the same gospel!” I think. “How do they come to that conclusion??”

One of the ways that the gospel speaks to Carl Roger’s little half-truths about humanity is by reminding us that all people were created in God’s image (Gen 1:27), and even more so God literally dwells in his people, the church (John 17: 23). I don’t know about you, but maintaining unconditional positive regard is not my jam. I never get there by my own efforts. However when you add in these two truths about God’s people, isn’t it a little easier? God’s truth gives purpose to this calling. Realizing that despite our differences and our disagreements, there is something greater that binds us together—the spirit of God, they are made in his image, as am I.

Now, experiencing empathetic understanding for each other, and making sure to convey this empathy can be equally as challenging. Like I mentioned, I lose all desire to listen empathetically as I wonder, “How do you come to that conclusion?” It’s not that I genuinely want to know how you thought through this…it’s that I’ve shut down because I think you’re ridiculous. Awful, I know. But we know that God will not call us to something without equipping us, so how does He encourage us toward this end of empathic understanding with one another?

In James 1:5 God reminds us that if we lack wisdom, we can pray and he will give it generously, later in 3:17, He reminds us that wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, and sincere. This is the type of wisdom that God grants us, which is humbling. He doesn’t promise that any one of us will ever have all the answers right, but he does promise to give us peace, reason, mercy, and sincerity as we grow. If God dwells in his people, is working on our hearts, and desires for us to be one, then when we pray asking for wisdom and help to love those with a different opinion than our own, he will do that good work in us. One of my favorite lines from the sermon was that our anthropology is that we are needy sinners, all in need of grace to love our neighbors and our enemies. There is not any other distinction or any other belief system that can make us one, but the spirit of God that we share makes us one. So we hold on to our distinctions, and we regard each other as children of God, made in his image, and we listen empathically (as even Rogers identified as crucial for relationships!) from a position of peace and gentleness, full of mercy, impartial and sincere.