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Why is it a mistake to focus on retreating, advising, or empathizing while attempting to provide SoulCare? Which of these three mistakes are you personally more likely to make as you attempt to engage in SoulCare? What do you think predisposes you to make that mistake?
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To retreat means to give up on helping the seeker; advising usually comes from our own experience and wisdom of what we think is the case and how we can fix it but all these are wrong. I would think empathizing is good but not enough. That person must come to a point to let the Holy Spirit work in their lives. For me, I have made all these mistakes in my attempts for SoulCare. What predisposes me to make these mistakes is that I am eager to help but my help comes from me, instead of me being used by God to minister to the person.
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It is a mistake to focus on retreating, advising, or empathizing while attempting soul care.Soul care is allowing The Holy Spirit to work through me in allowing the other person to have a hunger and thirst fo God above the circumstances of his/her life.To retreat is backing away from what I may not understand, or what overwhelms me. To give advise is attempting to solve by giving solution I think may work to make things better. To empathize, which is wonderful to show my feelings of care for this other person, but I need to allow The Holy Spirit to move with wisdom and seeing that person open up speak to bring him /her to the reality of the need for soul care.
I’m predisposed from experience to back away after learning of the situation and feeling that I wasn’t capable of handling the matter. This is a mistake in not depending completely on The Holy Spirit to guide me with wisdom.
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Retreating, because you find the problem larger than you can handle, is a cop-out because you do not rely on the resources of the Holy Spirit instead. Moreover, the person will sense either that you don’t care or that he must be a hopeless case.
Advising too early before exploring the person doesn’t help because your advice is often based on your presumptions. Moreover, asking him to follow your smart-aleck advice causes him not to rely on the Holy Spirit himself.
Empathizing merely makes the person feel better because you are there for him. But what is more essential is for him to know that God is there for him. Empathy given too early may also block the realization of his own sin in this matter.
I might be prone to advise too early. This may be partly due to the male inclination to fix problems and partly due to a desire for control (because having advice means that I know what to do and I have everything under control).
#SoulCare
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These common mistakes prevent us from getting to the core problem of each one of us, on deepest longing and desire for God. These mistakes and many other mistakes prevent us from providing effective Soul Care.
I think, given any given situation, I might make one of these three mistakes. Even since starting this course, I have become more aware of these pitfalls and try to avarice them by replacing them with things I have already started to learn and better understand how to apply. My most frequent mistake of the three, I believe, is Empathy. I know empathy is good, not bad, but I also understand better that empathy is a start…not a solution, to providing Soul Care.
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I tend to empathize and I can see this a a mistake because I’m essentially wanting that person to feel like they are okay – since I understand where they are coming from, then they are okay where they are. This is the opposite of helping them have a hunger for God and to see how much they want and need Him. They need that hunger more than they need to feel “okay”.