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?

[Austin]

Retreat back to our comfort zone. We bring the other person to where we are ‘secure,’ rather than journeying with the person at his/her crossroad with Jesus.
Advise as a “band-aid” solution. Often times, it portray a “expert” posture that we have the answers, when in fact we don’t have a clue how to move forward.
Empathizing to convey a “I understand” stance to the other person, when we aren’t ready to work through our interior world, and understand the other person’s interior world, and what the Spirit is doing in both our lives. Personal emotional responses (grief) is incomparable.

I retreat when I sensed this is going to be a super ‘hot potato” and when I can’t envision how to help the other person. The retreat is driven by fear of being stuck in a ‘sticky’ dependency. It’s a risk I have to take if I desire to involve in Soulcare – “a drowning man holds on to a straw.” Healthy boundaries, and always directing the person to Christ who is able, not me.

Predispose: I have been stalked.

[Austin]

Retreating, advising and empathizing are all common mistakes while attempting to provide soulcare, but none of these methods truly care for the soul of the other person or direct them back to God. Instead, these responses keep the focus on the problem. I am personally the most likely to empathize. I want to make the other person feel good, and I want to resolve the problem by caring for the individual. I feel like it is important to empathize, but it is also important to keep going and to uncover what is really going on in their soul rather than staying in that place of empathy.

[Austin]

Your not relying on Brokenness, Repentance, Abandonment, Confidence to achieve Release, to allow the Holy Sprit to move and keep and accept the realization this is to big for me but what is in me from accepting Christ as my savior is released and will go to work on both of us. Predisposes, I used to rely on life experiences that have helped me see different Journeying Reality’s and I relied on them to piece a soul story together but you can not do this for each person is different and solely unique, you need to Journey into their story, be curious of the red dot, not impose other’s history into someone else’s unique story and place.

[Austin]

When we focus on these three things we are not depending on the Spirit – we are focused on fixing the problem or getting away from it. When I don’t know how to engage – I think I lean towards empathy – because it’s easy. When I am feeling competent, I lean towards advise – giving people the “to-do” list. These are rooted in my own junk – my wanting to help so that I am needed or valued. Or my pride that wants people to think I’m wise.

[Austin]

Retreating just makes a person feel more abandoned and less likely to share their issues with someone. It can cause them to be more self reliant (lost) and less aware of their need for total dependence on God.

Advising is just rearrange behavior based on limited information and partial perspectives. It is outside in help. They need the Holy Spirit to guide them from the inside out. There are no recipes or prescriptions that soul care provides to fix people or problems.

Empathy agrees with the issue, but does nothing more. It’s like patting the back of someone with a paper cut or bullet wound.

In the past, I would say that I tend to retreat when I feel like I can’t help or the hole becomes too deep for me to see the light in the person’s life. I have to be VERY mindful NOT to give advice. Part of my job is to provide resources. I have to realize that most people don’t want advice, they just want a listening ear. Beyond that, they need the Lord. I struggle with that.

I think I am predisposed in that area because “it feels ” like the right thing to do. I want people to feel better, do better and find hope after talking to me. I really need to work to take ‘me’ out of the equation and be a lesser light to guide them to Jesus.