The Tragedy of Psychotherapy in Modern Times

Since when did anyone get the idea that they were supposed to be happy?

More importantly, since when did anyone get the idea that anything in this life can grant us life, joy, peace?

I blame the modern Enlightenment, which aside from the physical sciences, did not enlighten man's understanding of the truth or the universe, but rather occluded it.

Modern thinkers, whether Kant, Hume, or even the Physiocrats of the Romantic era until the end of the nineteenth century, placed a greater premium on man's feelings and understanding of the universe, as opposed to starting from the proper foundation: God.

When we attempt to understand anything from our limited perspective, we create pain and frustration for ourselves. The world does not revolve around us. It can't, since the world has been around long before we were born, and will remain here even after we die.

There are limitations to our knowledge, to our awareness. We may feel or think certain prejudices, yet the results and consequences which play out in our lives do not measure up right away with what we are thinking.

Yet from the modern Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century until today, we have taken the initial point of knowledge away from Him who has been from the Beginning, and replaced knowledge and understanding with what we know as true.

Anything which runs against our current understanding, we reject or attack vehemently.

Happiness and mental well-being has become a greater problem in our culture, not because of a growing supply of knowledge, but rather the humanistic basis of ourselves and our experience as the final arbiter of anything true or worthwhile.

We were created by God, our loving Father, and He has demonstrated His love for us through His Son, and His death on the Cross.

This love, this grace, this wonderful joy, is greater than human feelings and hopes. We need the Divine in our lives to make up for the lack in our flesh and in our present times.

Yet if we discontinue Christ and Him Crucified, if we dispute the truth of God and His wonder in this world, then we will always face a gnawing emptiness in our experience. We were made for high and holy things, not for crude elements and matters of little value.

We were not made for this fallen world, but for something far greater, infinite.

As long as men and women continue to look to their efforts, their hopes, and their small dreams.

In modern times, since man presumes himself sufficient unto himself, he has turned away from the one source of life and peace, and instead embraced what he or other people can come up with, or create.

Man is now greatly unhappy, restless, irritable, discontented, because he wants to create life, joy, and peace through his own limit means, yet finds that no matter what he does, it's not good enough.

It's never going to be good enough.

Jesus has come, and serves us evermore, as a High Priest Forever, that we may have his life, and that more abundantly.

He did not come to please our empty flesh, in which we can find no good thing, in which we can find no rest or solace. He is our life, and in Christ we can reign in life, as opposed to deign in death.

Yet to this day, people seek self-improvement. They want to rely on their efforts, instead of receiving His grace. How can they, if they do not believe in God, or in the God of the Bible, one who cares about us more than we care about ourselves?

And so, church-going folks go to counselors and psychiatrists, looking for answers, hoping for something better to bring some joy and worth into their miserable lives. We have made our happiness the most important value, yet never realize that we cannot earn or fight for it, but rather we receive it, along with all other things, as a gift which God our Father gives us through His Son.

It's so difficult for us to rest and receive from Him. I am admitting this truth even now, having grown up in a religious home where forms and traditions took greater precedent over knowing Him in the Scriptures. I went to the counselors, the therapists, the psychiatrists, convinced that whatever was bothering me was something that I could fix with the right amount of Bible reading and thinking and doing.

No!

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3: 18)

This lesson has been one of the most difficult. Rest and receive His grace, which shapes me to be more like Him, and this through His Holy Spirit and as I behold Jesus -- Savior and Friend -- in the Bible!

Wow! So easy, and yet for someone like me and many others, who have been raised in the modern therapy self-help culture, we still think that the imperfections in our lives can be changed or reduced or fixed with some effort on our part.

Thank you, Jesus, for revealing to me the power of this wonderful verse in 3 John:

"Beloved, I wish above al things that thou mayest prosper and be in health even as thy sol prospereth." (3 John 2)

How about that! God wants us to prosper more than we do! I am still trying to get my head around this wonderful truth.

What has taken me so long? Self-righteousness, born of the notion not that I think that I am just wonderful compared to others, but that I can make myself better through my own efforts.

Give me a break! You might be thinking.

I would agree with you, except that I was raised in the AA cult, which taught me to look to myself and rely on my efforts not to be bored, frustrated, resentful, et cetera.

AA is one example of the tragedy of psychotherapy in our modern times, where many people have fooled themselves into thinking that they can understand God from their perspective, make sense of the hardships and pains in their lives, and thus rely on their efforts to do well.

If I felt bad, I needed to do something about it, rather than rest and let His supply flow. I am so grateful for the Gospel of Grace revolution touching every corner of the globe. His greater glory is to found in our doing more, but our seeing more of Him.

And seeing more of Him who has been from the beginning has nothing to do with how we feel, but how much of Him we see by grace through faith.

This lesson has been easy and difficult at the same time, but I thank God for the times and tragedies nonetheless which have taught me the importance of taking everything easy, because He is taking everything on His shoulders.

Thanks for reading, everyone, who has found this blog useful and helpful. There is the Best Way, not just a better way, in all that Christ Jesus has done. Do not settle for what little you know in your experience, but trust in His fullness to see you through all things.

Keep coming to the Word of God. He works, if you let Him!