If you want to learn something really well, don’t just attend a class on it or read a book about it, teach it to someone else. This is something I’ve heard since I was in college so many years ago prepping to become a teacher. I’m finding the same is true for one who counsels. If you want to believe something is true for you, counsel someone to believe it is true for them. The truths of God one can easily know. Believing the truths of God for oneself are a different story.

The young man I wrote about yesterday was a great example of this. He had asked Jesus into his heart when he was a child. He hadn’t asked God’s forgiveness for the sins of his current years so we did that. He then knew and believed God forgave him. I asked him how God saw him and he said his mom told him God saw him as a diamond–a treasure. I asked if he saw himself that way–having forgiven himself? His response was a no. We undertook this and he accepted the challenge to forgive himself. The change in his countenance was remarkable.

This young man is in his later teens. I was in my early 40’s when I was confronted with forgiving myself. I didn’t actually believe this forgiveness until I was in my 60’s. Experiencing this with a young man was so rewarding knowing he doesn’t need to live his life as I have in secret and in guilt. It is so amazing to use one’s past to help someone not let life and Satan build a similar one for themselves. Our God is so AMAZING!