Christian counseling free essay sample

After reading the article, â€Å"Discerning Spiritual Discernment: Assessing Current Approaches for Understanding God’s Will†, I see the value in the entire decision making factors listed in the article. I will though start off by saying the most important factor in any decision needed to be made is relying on God for his wisdom and guidance. I believe for all the aspects or factors of decision making to fall into place Prayer is also a must. A brief summary of the three approaches that we were asked to define in our own words are; 1) Bull’s-Eye Approach- (Frisen, Garry 2004) refers to it as a â€Å"Traditional View† where Christians pray for specific guidance. 2) Wisdom Approach- â€Å"If anyone lacks wisdom you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. † (James 1:5) Here James is telling us that God already knows all of our strengths, talents and abilities. We will write a custom essay sample on Christian counseling or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page 3) Relationship-Formation Approach-God provides guidance, but he expects Christian to mature in their decision making abilities. Based on the survey and the factors that given I feel that Thomas’s approach in which he followed discerning the will of God for his life was that of the â€Å"Bull’s- Eye Approach† according to Horton (2009). He realized that God had brought Him this decision and He will see him through it. With that being said Thomas must rely on Gods plan, there are many times His plan and our plans are different but rest assured He has much better plans. Knowing and accepting that ultimately God has a plan makes decision making easier or makes decisions more clear. God does have a map for us to and it’s our decision to use it or not. My personal position on discernment will naturally influence how I address the clients concerns. I feel strongly that ultimately God has a plan for all of us and we need to trust Him and that will reflect some in my counseling. However my goal is to explore what is important to the client, his or her values, beliefs, experiences and decision making factors. They may rely more on scripture and less on prayer for knowing what God’s will is and I have to be open to that. I understand that decisions in life are always difficult and knowing exactly what Gods will is can be hard as well. Our timing and His timing are not always in the same timing and although it is hard we have to accept that. Looking back I saw that I took a much longer road in life myself. Would I go back and change any part of it? The answer is no. I lived, I learned an ultimately found Gods will and am using my gifts and can see how they have helped me get where I am now. I hope the same for my client.