A spiritual counselor is a treasure. A spiritual counselor is someone who has the knowledge, experience and maturity to accelerate your Spiritual growth. They are hard to find but they often make the difference between plateau or progress. If I had to choose just two channels of growth, one would be activational meditation on Scripture and the other would be a good spiritual counselor.
A good spiritual counselor (whether they call themselves a coach, mentor, or director – we are not referring to counseling for psychological disorders) should hold you accountable in areas of purification and other commitments. They should know how to apply the principles of discernment (which we looked at in the chapter about exercising discernment) to your ideas or to any impressions you think you might have from God. A counselor who just affirms all the impressions you think you are getting from God is not helpful. In general, the counselor should not hesitate to help you see when you are going in the wrong direction.
They should also be able to teach you the principles of growth and have a good working knowledge of Scripture on Christian maturity. They should be gentle yet fearless, focused more on honoring God than gaining your approval. They should challenge you to deep change, saying what you need to hear. They should be patient and focus on the next step of growth that fits your journey rather than try to move you too far all at once; at the same time, they should not be permissive.
These are all principles of spiritual counseling we find in Jesus, Paul and other New Testament writers. (It is worth noting that Jesus was not always gentle with the twelve disciples; he had high expectations for them and held them to high standards, sometimes with very abrupt words.) It would be good for counselors and counselees to look at what Jesus and Paul did to make disciples. Moreover, all the elements of spiritual counseling I mentioned have been part of spiritual counseling (which has historically been referred to as “spiritual direction”) since our first extensive accounts of spiritual counseling in the early 4th century up until recently.
Helping someone discern how God is leading them is the most important element of spiritual counseling, but without a healthy dose of observation, accountability, discernment, instruction and other biblical practices the counseling will be weak. Instead, seek out someone who can actually watch how you live and minister. This combats the problem of hiding your true self from your counselor. Invite them to point out weaknesses and sins.
Books can give you an idea of what spiritual counseling should look like. For contemporary books on advanced maturity try Seasons of the Soul by Bruce Demarest and Mansions of the Heart by Thomas Ashbrook. Two excellent books for intermediate maturity are Authentic Faith by Gary Thomas (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002) and You Can Change by Tim Chester (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010). If you can’t find a counselor then these books can be good substitutes.
