You Need Professional Help
Posted on January 30, 2007
Filed Under Timely Issues | Leave a Comment
You need professional help! Depending on the context, you might take offense at that statement or be grateful for it. Say, for example, after you pour out your heart to a close friend about a current relationship, he or she responds by saying you need professional psychiatric help: you might be offended. On the other hand, if you are a 19-year-old first-round 
draft choice with a two million dollar signing bonus and the same friend says you need professional help with all that money, you might agree.
The truth is we all need professional help in different areas of life at different times. That fact has become increasingly clearer to me as I get older. Maintaining a home has made me appreciate experts who know how to fix electrical, plumbing and heating systems. A financial whiz I am not, which makes me grateful for those professionals who help me make wise investments. Recovering from a broken leg has compelled me to seek help from professionals in orthopedics and physical therapy.
Unfortunately, it is more acceptable to get professional help in some areas of life than others. Your buddy might boast about the great tip his investment counselor pitched that resulted in a home run. But he might not boast so eagerly to coworkers that he and his wife are pursuing marriage counseling. And what would you do if you wanted spiritual counsel for questions you have about God, heaven, or meaning in life?
Consider how many areas of life tend to get overlooked yet need some professional help. One often overlooked area is the spiritual or religious segment. Most of us would not consider ourselves theologians or “experts,” but we do have some pretty important questions. The funny thing is that many theologians, scholars, philosophers, and thoughtful people have given attention to almost any question you or I can come up with and have addressed it somehow.
As big and challenging as some of those spiritual questions may seem, taking the first step is the most important. “To be utterly lost in the woods is unfortunate. To be absolutely unconcerned about it is unreasonable. Yet so many people who spend weeks mastering a new video game, months learning a tennis serve, or years perfecting a golf swing will not invest a few days, or even a matter of hours, in the effort to understand better some of the deeper questions about life.” writes Thomas Morris. If you could ask God one question, what would it be? Why not start there and see what the “professionals” have to say. Suffice it to say, we could all use some professional help.
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