“Trusting that God’s word works, that this is part of how the word of Christ dwells richly in our lives and that over time it will produce deep roots, stability, life and growth — for those in crisis and for those who are not.”

Some time ago I ended up meeting with someone who was in very dark circumstances. I was introduced to her by someone else who clearly believed that I was going to be able to help her. In reality, I felt almost completely out of my depth. I had a desperate desire to palm her off onto someone who had a lot more expertise in the kinds of things she was facing than I had. I tried to be honest with her, ‘I’m not a counsellor or a psychologist, but I’ve been in church work for more than twenty years and I guess I have met people in a few different situations. All I can offer is regular meetings where we talk, read the Bible and pray. Would you be up for that?’ And to my amazement, she said yes.

So we agreed to meet fortnightly. Each time we read a section of Ephesians together. We tried to read it carefully, to understand what Paul was saying to those first-century readers and why. We tried to work out the implications for ourselves, to grasp hold of and pray through the big ideas, to understand what it meant in Paul’s world and what it might mean for us personally. We tried to take other practical steps as well; each time we would chat about how her week had gone. We talked about possible ways forward for her particular situation, and we agreed one or two specific questions I would ask her the next time we met.

And then we had a conversation where everything changed for me. We had been meeting for some time by this point and I remember my friend saying to me that she didn’t want to spend all her time focusing on her problems, but wanted instead to focus on being and growing as a Christian. And it struck me that I had been in danger of being much too negative in my approach. When I thought about her, I mostly saw the tough issues she was facing. I should have seen her as a sister in Christ and a child of God, and seen her dark situation as an opportunity for growth.

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