The other day when I was on Justin Taylor’s Between Two World blog. I saw this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote and realized how true it is. After spending half of my life in counseling and at times medication through the world of psychology. It is a relief to find out that there are those who understand. I found the more counseling I got the sicker I was, the more hopeless I got. When I was introduced to Jesus Christ and his grace filled gospel I found understanding, forgiveness and hope.
The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus.
The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is.
Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this.
In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner.
The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness.
The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (pp. 118-119):
H/T: Between Two Worlds
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