At Home – by Rudy Gray

Tools can help us in our lives and in our service to God and his church, but his truth can never be replaced by even the best tools.

Rudy Gray

Last year, more than $750 billion worth of self-help books were sold. Yet, we still have what some are calling epidemic levels of emotional, mental, physical and spiritual distress.

People continue to seek help, counseling and direction for their lives. Too many of these individuals are not finding it. Counseling typically involves some type of diagnostic procedure. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) over the years has served as the manual that most professionals turn to for help in making a diagnosis. But when a diagnosis has been made, what next?

A diagnosis is usually an attempt to state what is wrong with someone. A fairly new movement called “positive psychology” has introduced its own manual called “Character Strengths and Virtues Handbook” (CSV). It is an effort to identify and classify positive character traits for psychological health – not negative traits or psychological illness.

The positive psychology movement even has an instrument (test) called the VIA Signature Strength Survey. It consists of 240 questions which purport to measure 24 character strengths and virtues. All of this is not bad news. It is good news. But doesn’t God’s word give us a tremendous resource for positive character strengths and virtues?

Tools such as the CSV and the VIA survey can be useful. But even these positive instruments or manuals can never replace the truth God has given us in his word.

Many Christians today are stressed, depressed, anxious, nervous, frustrated, angry, discouraged, distressed and hurting in so many different ways. A trained counselor may be able to give a person a diagnosis. The DSM, for example, allows a tentative diagnosis on the basis of detecting, say, five out of eight possible symptoms listed for a particular problem. But that may fall short of actually helping the person.

Knowing what is wrong is never enough. It can help. Knowing what to do that is right and good is imperative. Right thinking is good, but not good enough. Right thinking must be married to genuine faith in a very real God who has revealed for his people the way to live a fulfilling and purposeful life.

I am grateful for all the helpful tools we can use. However, I am most grateful for the greatest tool we can employ in our service of help to hurting people. Sanctification, in one sense, is about getting better. We cannot do that without God’s book of virtues. Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them in truth; Your Word is truth” (John 17:17).