Biblical Counseling for Military Members and Veterans that relies entirely on Christ.

Military members and veterans face unique challenges and struggles that are often distinctly different than what the average person in the Unites States experiences. Often times this leaves them considering themselves as outcasts from society in many regards. As a three time combat veteran, I personally know this feeling very well. This is where Biblical counseling from a former military member and combat veteran can play a crucial role in providing hope, support, and guidance in how God's Word practically and personally speaks to the matters of military service, and it's effects on all aspects of life.

Where did the operation of our lives go so sideways, so as to drive toward some kind of abort criteria? We naturally, start searching for the source of enemy fire in the wrong places. We assess the situation with the wrong wisdom, naturally. We conduct our AAR (After Action Review) and never consider a starting place for our assessement, that is entirely outside of ourselves, an objective One. 

The VA estimates that over 80% of military veterans engage in psychotherapy and that percentage has increased over last year as it has over the last several years. 

In a national study over the last ten years, 33% or more of United States service members had at least one mental health visit. All of this seems wonderful. The active duty and veteran populations are calling for support and someone is there to help. But is this the wrong starting place for service members and former service members? 

Suicide rates have advanced upward consistently with each passing decade and yet many don't see the connection with the increased reliance upon psychotherapies. The "answers" from psychology are not driving back the enemy with lasting hope. The yearly situation reports should be evaluating these missions as desperately in need of some different lines of advance. Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen are dying while secular psychology sends them charging up the same man centered, philosophical hill decade, after decade as if we either can't properly interpret the intel or we are just not willing to accept what it says.

Are we seeing this from the C2 bird's perspective and are we using the wrong weapons? Some would say that we are trying to use human reasoning to conquer human reasoning. Maybe we need something outside of human reasoning, something more powerful, and objective with the power to conquer human reasoning. We need close air support; help from above with weapons more powerful than those of human reasoning.

God starts in a very different place than we naturally do. He starts with Himself. The first and last authors of the Bible function like bookends on the whole of the Bible. These human instruments of God both start in the same exact place. God in organizing and giving us His Word, the Bible, with both the first and last authors begining in the exact same place. With Him, God. We must start and end where He starts and ends. With Himself.

The first man that God enlisted into the operation of taking pen to paper begins our Christian Bibles with God’s starting place for everything.

“In the beginning God…”

Moses, God's first human instrument in recording Scripture starts with God.

God is the starting place for all things and yet this common expression clearly states how God is almost always our last frequency to call out on. “I guess all we can do now is pray.” Very sadly, this expresses captures well, the thinking of many people and even those who are in the American church to some extent. Our last author of Scripture is the Apostle John who was trained by Christ directly. In his Gospel, John begins with,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God            (John 1:1).”

God’s Word reveals God’s Person and God’s Person is our starting place!

These two men, Moses and John, through whom God breath out His Words to humanity, form book ends if you will. Moses the first human writer of the Bible and John the last human writer of the Bible. Additionally, each of these authors are used by God to record the central, “I AM” statements of God that magnify His Person expressed throughout the whole of Scripture.

Moses records God’s first, “I AM…” statement and it can be understood in its context as essentially meaning, “I will be who, I will be.” The rest of the book of Exodus and the Bible gives us the in action, through interaction with humanity explanation of who God is.

Likewise, the last author of Scripture, John, records for us the many, “I AM” statements of Jesus Christ as He walked among His people in real life, in action, through interaction with humanity explaining to us and showing us, who God is. Jesus is the perfect representation of the Person of God (Hebrews 1:3).

Each of these first and last authors, point us directly to the person of God as He communicates to mankind with, “I AM the starting place.” Lima Charlie, right? (Loud and clear if your a civilian) Or, as Jesus will say in the last book of the Bible’s opening and closing statements,

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty (Rev 1:8).’”

And

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end (Rev 22:13)”

(Alph and Omega are not just used as phonetic alphabet they are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet and the entire Bible was written in Greek in Jesus day)

Jesus is saying in the opening and closing remarks of the final book of the Bible, Revelation, that He is the first and the last letter, the only one who is entirely self-sufficient, the only One who needs nothing and no one, the Only One who cannot be added to or taken from. He is evaluated by nothing but evaluates everything. He cannot learn, He does not change. He cannot lie. He cannot error. All of His ways are perfect and when we see them as otherwise, it is most certainly a problem with our perspective and not a problem with His Person.

Hear His call. Come to His starting place, “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest (Matt 11:28)”  

Yes, He sends those whom He has already trained, to go out and call others to Himself by teaching His Word’s and arriving at His meaning for our lives. Hear His calling you to start with Him, through the pages of His Word. Hear His call through the people He is sending to you. See Him in His Word, the Bible, Start with Him! In all your assessments of life's circumstances, start with what He says and who He is.

Right now you can do something about the tragic suiside rates in American and among the miltary / veteran community. You can share your story about how He has helpped you see life through the knowing of His Person and the light that He brought to your life, through knowing Him. You can comment below or email your comments directly as give us permission to share them using your initials only.

You can support this operation more by adding your voice to the choir and praying for those who read your testamony. Of course you can support us by monthy financial gifts, but your words of hope followed by faithful prayer can do so much more (James 5:16)