The service industry has grown enormously in the last couple of decades, and I have no argument with that. After all, I too need help taming and controlling that monster on my desk fondly known as My Computer. There is a part of the service industry with which I'm not so pleased. I refer to the burgeoning growth of counselling services; they rise as fast and as plenteous as mushrooms on my winter lawn. And that, of course, is because there is public demand for counselling services.

Again, that a public who does not know God will seek counsel from the gurus of this world is understandable. The pressures of their circumstances drive them to seek help from the only place they know to look…, and since they know not how to look on high, their vision is limited to the earth beneath. Your marriage doesn't glow? This world's woman will seek a counsellor in the city. You can't make your payments? The young head of his family will tell his tale of woe to Centre Link, and receive a sympathetic ear. You're stressed out because some calamity has hit you? The self-pitying can call on the media to publish your crisis and massage your sense of 'poor me'. Oh yes, I can understand that that's how our society seeks salvation and wellbeing, relief from troubled days…

But surely, not those of the church… Surely, in the face of marriage strife, none of us would seek a counsellor in the city? And as we struggle to get over those bad memories of years gone by…, none of us would ring up a crisis line…? Or hunt up a support group to find direction in the crisis we face…?

I've taken no poll. But I know the habit of the world is not unknown in the church of Jesus Christ. As we lift our hearts on high, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1), we take our selves to the counsellor's office on the other side of town…

O, my reader, I'm not going to say there's no place at all for a counsellor or a psychologist or a support group; please read on. But I am going to make a case for the right order of things. The angel told Joseph to call the baby “Jesus”, for (He said), “He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). That is why we confess in LD 11 of the Catechism that “salvation is not to be sought or found in anyone else.” Stronger: “either Jesus is not a complete Saviour, or those who by true faith accept this Saviour must find in Him all that is necessary for their salvation.” That confession needs to mean something as we contemplate the services of a counsellor.

Let me try to explain. We can't separate daily life from religion, from God. In fact, the God who once created heaven and earth is busy in the lives of one and all moment by moment. In every trial in which we find ourselves, it's not with the contrary neighbour that we have to do, or with the pressures of poverty or sickness; in every trial we face in this life it is first of all with God that we have to do. Always is He here; never are we outside of His nearness. Psalm 139: “if I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me…” (Vss. 8, 10. This God became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), even experienced the very trials under which we daily groan (Hebrew 4:15). In His Spirit He is present still, even groans along with us to the Father (Romans 8:26). It's the Christian's only comfort: every day, every moment, every step I'm in the hands of the God who gave up His Son to ransom me.

That is why, dear reader, it is so foolish, in the face of the trials that be, to fail to consider Him. To bank on own strength to solve the problem, or to turn to the support agencies of our day to help us handle the problem, or to bury the problem under a flood of alcohol: all have this one fundamental error in common, and that is that salvation from the pressures of the problem is sought in the wrong place. Like the true horizontalist, we forget that sickness, struggles, strife all come from sin, is God's response to sin, and that's why in the midst of sickness and struggles and strife it is to God that we must turn; it is with Him that we have to do.

That is also why the first thing the Christian must do in the face of trials is to go to God in prayer. It is with God that we have to do, it is He who sends this trial on our path, and that is why we must ask God for His answer to the problem He set before us. And God's answer invariably directs us to Christmas: 'I gave My Son to take your sin away. Now, My child, will you believe, in the face of the trial I put on your path, that there is still no condemnation for you? It's My promise to you in the covenant signified and sealed to you in holy baptism; will you in the heat of your misery believe that you are safe in My fatherly hands, will you trust that I will carry you, that I provide relief? OR will you today, in the heat of your trial, decline to believe My covenant promises to you, decline to entrust yourself to Me, and instead seek relief from the pressures through devices of your own making?'

It's a perspective we may not forget. Every affliction is a test from God, a test as to whether we seek our help in the name of the Lord, yes or no. That is: every trial confronts me with the question whether I believe that Jesus in fact came into this world to save me from my sin, whether I believe that the Son of God in fact paid for my sins so that there is no condemnation for me, believe that even in the pressures of this life God is my Father for Jesus' sake and so I'm totally safe with Him. That's the question that God lays before me every time I think I have evidence that God is angry with me: do I in fact believe that the crisis I'm in is the work of my loving Father prompting me to greater growth in Him? Do I believe that my Father has the answers for my question in His Word, and the only way to wellbeing and relief in my trial is to seek His answers? OR do I think in terms of God being detached from my circumstance (He doesn't really involve Himself with the nitty-gritty of daily life), think in terms of me needing to find my own answers to my problems? Each affliction is a test: do I pursue happiness and wellbeing by leaning on my own capacities, leaning on the capacity of my lawyer, on the liberality of support agencies, on the strength of my mind, my money, my mouth, my muscles? That's the question: do those who seek relief and wellbeing from counselling services or government agencies or their own abilities or the bottle believe in the only Saviour Jesus?

The Lord's answer is categorical. It is with God that we have to do, every moment of our existence. So it is to God that we need to turn, time and time again, for relief, for help, for wellbeing. Every time we fail to turn to God we in effect disown the baby born in Bethlehem, deny that Jesus in fact is Saviour, is so complete a Saviour that “those who by true faith accept this Saviour must find in Him all that is necessary for their salvation” (LD 11). It just will not do to think that Jesus gives salvation for the life to come, while counsellors (or the bottle or the support group, etc) gives a sense of wellbeing today. It just will not do to think that Jesus reconciles to God, and meanwhile depend on our clever mind or smooth tongue or good connections to obtain relief from the problems God sends in this life. It is with God that we have to do, no matter the circumstance, and so always, always it's to Him that we need to turn – and then seek His favour through the saving work of Jesus Christ. And then, with our hand in His, walk the way He has specified in His Word – and trust that our Father in Jesus Christ will permit not a hair to fall from our respective heads unless it serves for our good.

What, then, of the support services our age offers us? Do I say that there is in this life no place for seeking help from support groups or doctors or counsellors? Please do not hear me to suggest that. But I trust that my reader recognizes now that there is an order in things. Neither support groups or counsellors or bottles or any such thing can provide relief from my trials, for it is first with God I have to do; my trials come from Him. And to have a good relation with God: that's a question of whether my sins are forgiven in the blood of Jesus Christ. As long as God remains angry with me, I can throw all the money and resources of the world at my problem, but I shall not get out from under God's anger. And as long as His curse remains on account of my sins, my problem shall ultimately not go away; as I solve a problem in one area of life, His curse shall express itself somewhere else. It is only when I am reconciled to God through the sacrifice of Jesus that the curse is gone from the problems I face. And that reconciliation through Jesus' work produces a sense of peace, wellbeing, salvation – for there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

And then, once that forgiveness is there with its resulting peace, then I'm also able to accept what the Lord in wisdom has put on my path. For when I know Jesus as my Saviour, then I know God as my Father, yes, then I see a loving (though incomprehensible) Father at work in my life, a Father who gives me what He in wisdom determines I need. So I don't despair at my trials, and I don't strike out in desperation to solve the problem this way or that way. Instead, there's a peace from God that settles the soul in the midst of storms that comforts the heart; I know I'm safe in Father's gracious hands.

And when that peace is there, a peace rooted in the work of Jesus Christ, yes, then we may count on the blessing of the Lord as we seek to make use of the opportunities that God places on our path to solve the needs we have. Prayerfully, in keeping with the instructions of God's Word, we then may make use of our minds, our money, our mouths to overcome the troubles we face, may use resources in the church, in the community, etc. But, we understand, using these resources is then no longer a matter of seeking to obtain wellbeing; we have salvation, we have wellbeing, a state of no condemnation because of the work of Jesus the Saviour. And because we have that wellbeing, we may work with the opportunities the Lord places on our path, opportunities to improve our lot in life.