Pastor Bob just finished a counseling session with a couple from his church. Their three-year-old has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the prognosis is dire. Bob has done his best to comfort them and point them back to God for guidance and comfort.
As a biblical counselor, he has faithfully used Scripture to point these parents to God’s attributes, providence, love, and comfort. He has offered practical steps to help them remain faithful in their walk with God. He has also informed his church about the family’s needs, ensured those needs were met, and made sure the couple was cared for physically and spiritually. Bob is doing all he knows to do.
As he drives home from the counseling session, Bob cannot overcome the weight of what he has witnessed. He thinks about his own children and imagines himself in that same situation. What would he do? How would he respond? How could he bear the thought of losing a child?
He wonders what else he could do for this couple. He replays their questions in his mind. He reflects on their struggle to trust God and remain faithful as their world seems to be falling apart. The more he thinks about it, the heavier the burden feels.
Before he reaches home, Bob finds himself crying uncontrollably. He realizes that he can’t fix the situation on his own. He knows he has faithfully counseled them from Scripture and that they belong to the Lord, yet he feels the weight of their suffering as if it were his own.
Counseling Others’ Burdens
What happens when a pastor or counselor’s compassion becomes an emotional burden? How can a counselor continue to empathize deeply with people who suffer without internalizing their pain himself?
Often, we, as counselors, carry a burden that does not belong to us. Ultimately, it belongs to Christ.
Christ is the primary counselor. When we counsel biblically, we use God’s Word, with the Holy Spirit’s help, to speak into our counselees’ troubled lives. As we counsel, the Spirit works in the hearts of both the counselee and the counselor to bring about change, provide comfort, and offer hope.
The counselor is not responsible for changing the heart, providing ultimate comfort, or producing the outcome. Those are God’s work. Our responsibility is to faithfully bring God’s Word to the counselee, to pray for them, to walk alongside them, and to entrust them to Christ. When we understand and trust that Christ is the primary Counselor, we can care deeply for our counselees without carrying their burdens as if they were our own.
Christ is the Primary Counselor
Since Christ is the primary Counselor, what is our responsibility as counselors?
As counselors, we must walk alongside our brothers and sisters and bear their burdens (Gal. 6:1–2). However, bearing someone’s burden does not mean we are responsible for the outcome.
As in evangelism, we faithfully proclaim God’s truth, but the Holy Spirit is the One who opens hearts and brings about spiritual change. As counselors, we cannot change their hearts, remove their suffering, or determine how they will respond to circumstances that God has allowed in their lives. The outcome belongs to God and to the work He does in counseling.
Our task is to be faithful in caring for our counselee and sharing God’s Word with them. We share and explain God’s Word. We pray. We listen. We encourage. We walk alongside the suffering person. And then we entrust that person and the outcome to Christ.
Watch Your Own Heart
Proverbs 4:23 reminds us to guard our hearts vigilantly, because the issues of life flow from the heart. Scripture teaches that what happens in our hearts ultimately shapes what we think, say, and do.
Pastor Bob didn’t magically forget his own burdens, weariness, and responsibilities when he entered the counseling room. What he heard and witnessed during counseling affected him deeply. We cannot forget that another person’s trials and struggles can affect the counselor’s own heart if he is not careful.
It is important that we pray for God’s guidance and protection before, during, and after each counseling session. As we pray, we should turn the burden over to God and trust that He is working in a mighty way.
This does not mean we stop caring; it means we recognize that God loves and cares for that couple more than we ever could, and we rest in that truth.
Empathy Without Ownership
Pastors and counselors love others. In His grace, God gives us the ability to serve His flock through Spirit-led care and concern. The Holy Spirit helps us love others as we love ourselves (Matt. 22:39) and produces the fruit of the Spirit in us (Gal. 5:22–23). This love, consistent with Jesus’ call to sacrificial love, means we are willing to put others’ needs ahead of our own (Phil. 2:3–4; Gal. 6:2).
In our love, most of us can empathize with those who are suffering. This empathy helps us understand and genuinely care about their experiences.
However, empathy does not require us to carry another person’s burdens as if they were our own.
When we begin to take responsibility for things God has not given us to carry, we can become emotionally overwhelmed, exhausted, and eventually burned out. Romans 12:15 tells us to weep with those who weep, but 1 Peter 5:7 reminds us to cast our cares upon the Lord because He cares for us.
We can enter another person’s suffering without taking ownership of it. We can weep with those who weep without believing we must fix what only God can fix. We can care deeply without carrying the burden as though it were our own burden.
The Burden Belongs to Christ
Only the Savior can do the work needed to heal and restore hurting people.
The counselor is not responsible for changing the heart, providing ultimate comfort, or producing the outcome. Those are God’s work. Our responsibility is to faithfully bring God’s Word to the counselee, prepare for each counseling session, pray for them, walk alongside them, and entrust them to Christ.
The suffering we encounter while counseling can be heavy and troubling. Some situations will stay with us long after the counseling session ends. We should not be surprised when the suffering of people we love and serve affects us. But we must remember whose burden it ultimately is. Christ is the primary Counselor. He loves our counselees more than we ever could. He knows their hearts, understands their suffering, and can do what we cannot.
So, care deeply. Weep with those who weep. Walk alongside those who hurt. Give them God’s Word and point them to Christ.
And when the counseling session is over, give the burden back to the One to whom it belongs.
— Scott Stephens serves as the counseling pastor at West End Baptist Church in Greenville, S.C. He also serves as the executive director of the Upcountry Biblical Counseling Training Center, a certified ACBC training center.
