Filling the Cracks in the Therapeutic

Developing gospel resilience in a therapeutic age.

I’ve been thinking more about my recent newsletter about cracks starting to appear in the therapeutic culture that we swim in. The biggest problem isn’t therapy or even being introspective about our wounds, hurts, traumas, neuroses, etc. It’s that, for many, we’ve allowed it to become the primary lens through which we see the world. And it’s making us less resilient. Which has some more consequences than just that.

A Therapeutic Gospel

All of us interpret our experiences through the categories that we’re given to make sense of things. In a social media age where a raging mental health crisis is ravaging people, it makes sense that therapeutic language is the most dominant. We desperately need relief from the onslaught of mental assault we’re taking every day from the outraged, polarized, fear-mongering, confusing media we consume every day. Our minds constantly oscillate between dopamine and cortisol, causing us to impulsively seek cheap rewards and pleasure while also making us so stressed out we can barely carry out our day-to-day responsibilities. Who will rescue us from this body of death?!

In a therapeutic age full of folks needing mental relief, it makes sense that the tendency is to apply the gospel, well, therapeutically. To talk about how the gospel gives us peace that surpasses all understanding. How the Holy Spirit is our comforter. That God has set us free and is sanctifying us to be more and more free every day. All of these things are true. It’d be irresponsible to say that we shouldn’t teach and apply these to our afflictions.

God meets us in our darkest sufferings and shines light in ways that only he can. In one of my darkest seasons, 2 Corinthians 1:4 was there for me in a time of profound need. “He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” God is the God of comfort.

The Shaping of Paul’s Character

Lately, though, I’ve been struck by how this comfort shaped Paul himself. If you continue in his second letter to the Corinthians, he describes the character of his own ministry in chapter 6:

“We are not giving anyone an occasion for offense, so that the ministry will not be blamed. Instead, as God’s ministers, we commend ourselves in everything:

• by great endurance,

• by afflictions,

• by hardships,

• by difficulties,

• by beatings,

• by imprisonments,

• by riots,

• by labors,

• by sleepless nights,

• by times of hunger,

• by purity,

• by knowledge,

• by patience,

• by kindness,

• by the Holy Spirit,

• by sincere love,

• by the word of truth,

• by the power of God;

• through weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left,

• through glory and dishonor,

• through slander and good report;

• regarded as deceivers, yet true;

• as unknown, yet recognized;

• as dying, yet see—we live;

• as being disciplined, yet not killed;

• as grieving, yet always rejoicing;

• as poor, yet enriching many;

• as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

We have spoken openly to you, Corinthians; our heart has been opened wide. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. I speak as to my children; as a proper response, open your heart to us.”

I turned these verses into bullet points to show the sheer vastness of his experience. I bolded his afflictions and italicized his virtues. These are experiences that shaped Paul. And they look very different than how we think about suffering, trials, and hardships now.

On the one hand, Paul is honest about the hardships he has experienced. This is right in line with our therapeutic age. Naming our hardships and trauma is good and necessary. But instead of talking about his coping mechanisms and techniques for healing, he begins listing virtues that his affliction has produced in him. Affliction, for Paul, wasn’t something to escape from; it was something to be formed by.

Developing Gospel Resilience

In a therapeutic age, we need to go a step beyond comfort. Not leaving comfort behind or not comforting others. We need all of our resources, including comfort. But we need more than mere comfort.

I know the “gospel-centered” movement isn’t what it used to be, so excuse my now outdated and apparently reformed-coded language. But maybe what we need is gospel resilience. More than a type of stoicism that white knuckles its way through trials, gospel resilience is the formation of virtue through hopeful trust in the faithfulness of God. By trusting God’s faithfulness in the midst of affliction, we allow ourselves to be pressed by trials, hold onto God’s promises, and develop virtue through the formation of our character that makes us increasingly resilient in a world full of troubles.

A lot has been said recently about resilient churches and resilient pastors as culture becomes more and more hostile to Christianity. All of that is good and right. There’s even been some written about making resilient disciples of young people. We’re getting closer to the mark of what I’m talking about here. But I think the need specifically for emotional resilience that is rooted in gospel hope is particularly important in our time.

The Love of Resilience

For some, I think the concern is that developing “resilience” might mean closing off your heart to others who are suffering. But Paul demonstrates the contrary. He finishes this paragraph by saying, “Our heart has been opened wide. We are not withholding our affection from you.” In fact, he says, “You are withholding yours from us. I speak as to my children; as a proper response, open your heart to us.”

The one withholding affection isn’t Paul; it’s the Corinthians. Because Paul has become resilient in the face of affliction, he has actually expanded his capacity for love because he is no longer concerned for himself but is free to be concerned for others. It’s a lack of resilience that closes our hearts because it keeps our gaze on ourselves. Suffering should point us up to God first and out to others second, widening our affections and deepening our love. Too often, our suffering points us to ourselves and shrinks our capacity for love by turning it inward.

A Better Resilience

The self-care narrative has long been “take care of yourself first so that you can better take care of others.” But it’s worth asking what fruit has been born from it. Does self-care actually expand our capacity for love? Certainly, there are seasons when we might need to step back and evaluate our overall health and reassess our capacity and priorities. But wouldn’t that be better regarded as prudence or wisdom than “self-care”?

It seems to me as though self-care as a lifestyle, the primary set of lenses that we see the world through, the practice we hold in the highest regard—not as moments of wise recalibration—seeks to eliminate suffering. A virtuous character is the channel through which a life of love flows, and when we eliminate suffering, we evade the development of virtue.

So maybe “self-care” is a deficient category. It’s not without helpful pieces of advice, but if we “care” for ourselves to the detriment of our actual virtue, we’ll wonder why the world continues to crush us. If we embrace suffering as the incubator of virtue, we might find ourselves becoming more and more resilient to the trials of life, and because we can better endure, we have more room for love.

One day, our hearts, too, can be wide open.