Why Bother Looking?

CHAPTER 1

Your Road of Life

“Really, I’m not searching!” These were the words of a client who was adamant about not bringing God into his counseling process. He was fed up with religious people who said they loved God, yet seemed to judge everyone and everything. “If these people represent God, then I want no part of it!” he said.

“Well, that’s quite an assumption to make about all religious people.  Has something recently happened to spur this anger?”

For the next thirty minutes, he spoke through clenched teeth and a raised voice, recounting a recent experience at a church he had visited with his girlfriend, who had just broken up with him.  His eyes conveyed disgust, sadness, frustration, and confusion.

“What happened at this church that made you so angry?” I asked.

“The pastor was talking about the need to turn to God in the good times and the bad and that He knows what’s best for us.  I totally disagree!  I know what’s best for me, and I don’t need God to direct my life and keep me from what I want to do!”

“And you think that if God is part of your life, somehow you’d lose your freedom?”

“Absolutely! I have done just fine without God all these years.  He never was there before, and I pride myself in the fact that I have done everything on my own.  I’m successful today because I made it happen, not God!”

Mirroring his resistance (a counseling technique) and reflecting his need for self-sufficiency, I said “Sounds like you’re pretty self-sufficient and you don’t need anyone else.  You have it all figured out.  No wonder your girlfriend left you.”

Silence.  He glared at me, and then shifted his eyes and body.  I hit a nerve.

“What brought you here today?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said in a small, shaky voice.

“I seem to have hit a nerve with you and I can understand you don’t want to talk about it right now. Is there anything you’d like to say before we close out this session?”  He was silent. “Here’s my card.  If you think you’d like to come back at another time to discuss it, my door is always open.”  He grabbed my card and stomped out of my office.

 One month later, he came back.  He stayed in counseling for more than a year.  As the weeks and months unfolded, this man was willing to take a look at how his self-sufficiency was a positive and a negative force in his life.  He learned how to take care of himself at a very young age because his parents were physically and emotionally absent many times throughout his childhood and teen years.  He paid his own way through college.  He was able to land a good job with a company that would allow him to move up the corporate ladder.  He had a lot of career success, but he was very lonely.  He had no one with whom to share his success.  For two months he blamed God for not putting a wife and family in his life.  His greatest need was to connect with other people on a more personal level.  When he discovered he was responsible for his lack of personal relationships, his view of God shifted. He learned to look to God for guidance rather than as the scapegoat.  We prayed at the beginning and the end of our sessions.  He started sharing more feelings in the counseling sessions, and began to trust that I would be physically and emotionally present – something he never allowed himself to experience because of the precedent his parents set.

 By the time this client finished counseling, he was able to take responsibility for his contribution to his unhappy life and what caused him to get there. His contributions included mistrust of others, workaholism, arrogance, belittling people if they couldn’t do the work his way (he was a manager), unrealistic expectations of people at work and in personal life, and being a perfectionist. 

The counseling process helped him let go of his perfectionism and his need to work eighty plus hours a week.  This allowed him some free time to devote to building relationships.  He realized that the way he built his career and got results were very different from how he approaches personal relationships.  He opened up his heart and mind to allow God to help him see life differently.  He started attending a church that had many different small groups he could join and get to know people at a more intimate level.  He saw that those people were not ‘fake’ as he had perceived religious people to be.  Once he allowed himself to experience God rather than make assumptions, he learned he could live life rather than just do life.

WHERE IN THE FOREST

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