I’m Interested in Biblical Counselling – What Does that Look Like, Exactly?

Life is hard. Likely you’ve tried to work through the difficulties you’re facing on your own, perhaps also with others, but the struggle continues. So, you’re looking for more help – some place to share your struggles and receive godly counsel. As I mentioned last month, biblical counselling is like having conversations with a wise and loving friend. Friends listen well. It’s no surprise, then, that counselling begins with hearing your story.

As we hear about you, your relationships and your life experiences, we’ll begin to help connect your life to Scripture where God Himself speaks. As we do this, we aim to incorporate a framework that includes a number of things:

• We live coram Deo 
• We are saints, sufferers and sinners
• We are embodied souls
• We need the Church
• A biblical counsellor is a fellow traveller, Christ is the Wonderful Counsellor

Whether or not people realize it, all of life is lived coram Deo – before the face of God. Biblical counsellors aim to help you explore who God is and how your life fits into the grand story of God’s redemptive work. We are created by God, known and loved by Him, affected by the brokenness of a fallen world, and invited to bring every part of our lives to Him.

As biblical counsellors, we seek to understand you through the lens of Scripture and to walk alongside you with the hope of the gospel. We recognize that, at different times (and often all at once) we are saints, sufferers, and sinners.

If you belong to Christ, your deepest identity is not found in your struggles, your failures, your relationships, or your circumstances.You are a saint: set apart and belonging to Christ. Therefore, you are seen, known, loved, and welcomed by God through Christ. This is where we start because everything else flows out from this unchanging status of saint.  Biblical counselling seeks to remind you of who you are in Christ and to help you live increasingly out of that beautiful and unchanging identity.

We are also sufferers, living in a world profoundly affected by Genesis 3. The effects of the Fall touch every part of our lives—our bodies, our minds, our emotions, our relationships, our work, and our experience of God and the world around us. Suffering is, therefore, not simply a spiritual problem to be corrected. Sometimes you may need space to grieve, to lament, to ask questions, and even to cry out to God. Scripture assures you that God is near to the brokenhearted, and He invites you to bring your fears, confusion, anger, sorrow, and needs before Him. Biblical counselling makes room for this honest engagement with suffering while helping you discover God’s presence and faithfulness in the midst of it.

We are also sinners who continually need the lavish grace of God. Our greatest need is salvation from sin through Jesus Christ. For those who belong to Him, the gospel does not stop at conversion. God continues to transform us as we grow in holiness and learn to submit every area of our lives to Jesus as Saviour and Lord. Biblical counselling therefore involves both comfort and challenge—offering the encouragement of the gospel while lovingly helping you recognize patterns of thought, desire, and behaviour that may be keeping you from living faithfully before God. So, you can expect conversations in counselling that go deep into the desires of your heart to consider where they might be selfish, godly, or perhaps good but disordered in their orientation toward self or the world, rather than submitted to Christ as Lord. 

While much of biblical counselling may be centered around the heart and your underlying desires and beliefs, we also counsel out of the knowledge that God created us as embodied souls. Our bodies and souls are deeply interconnected, and the brokenness we experience in one can affect the other. The Psalms describe physical exhaustion, and pain, sleeplessness, sorrow, fear, and distress alongside the cries and struggles of the soul. For this reason, biblical counselling pays attention to the whole person. Caring well for your soul includes paying attention to physical needs regarding sleep, nutrition, chronic pain, hormonal changes, or other physical factors that may affect how you think, feel, and respond to life. These concerns may sometimes require appropriate medical or other professional care alongside counselling.     We may also use practical tools such as breathing exercises or other ways of calming an overwhelmed nervous system—not as substitutes for biblical truth, but as ways of helping you become more settled, increasing your capacity to listen, think, pray, and respond to God’s Word as He does His work of transformation in you.

While there may be seasons when counselling is particularly helpful for you, we do not not view the counsellor as being your primary source of support. God has not designed the Christian life to be lived in isolation. The Church—the people and community of God—is an essential part of our growth, care, and perseverance in faith. We also want to help you become increasingly connected to the body of Christ, where you can experience the encouragement, prayer, wisdom, friendship, accountability, and practical care of other believers. As appropriate, biblical counsellors will encourage engagement in a healthy, Bible-believing local church and help you consider how you can develop a supportive community around you. If you are isolated, hurting, or struggling in you relationships, building a safe and healthy support system may be an important part of the counselling journey.

Finally, it’s good to note that a biblical counsellor is not “the expert” who has all the answers. Rather, the counsellor is a brother or sister in Christ, a fellow traveller on the road of sanctification, assisting you as you seek to make sense of your life before God. We listen carefully. We seek to understand. We encourage, comfort and, when necessary, lovingly exhort. We pray with and for you, recognizing that Christ is the Wonderful Counsellor and that He Himself intercedes for His people. Our hope, our aim is to reflect something of Christ’s compassionate presence—to be His hands and feet as we walk alongside you in your suffering and struggle—while continually pointing you back to the One who sees you, knows you, loves you, and is faithful to complete the work He has begun in you.

Ultimately, biblical counselling is not simply about solving problems: it is about helping you know God, understand yourself in light of His truth, and learn to live faithfully and abundantly before His face in every part of your life.

Andrea Kampen

Biblical Counsellor