A Heart of Flesh - Amanda Pan

It is not unusual for us to identify ourselves by our current vocation. If you asked a university student this question, “What are you going to be next time?” A student studying Pharmacy would reply “Pharmacist”, another studying medicine would say a doctor. As a Psychology major, I thought that becoming a Psychologist or Counselor would have been my natural course of action. 

This was also reaffirmed by recent happenings in my life and I had always thought it was God’s way of telling me that I made the right choice to go into Psychology. I had been so sure about this until Thursday when something Pastor Gideon said made me question my conviction. “You don’t need Psychology to know how to counsel.” At that moment, my friends who knew I was studying Psychology all turned to look at me and I recall jokingly saying that I would quit school immediately. The cool front I put up then did not reveal the storm that was brewing in my mind. Many questions and doubts started to emerge and right then, I felt extremely nervous about my future.
 

Psychology claims that most disorders result from negative cognitions which are often translated into maladaptive behaviors. However, Matthew 15:11 which reads “What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them", challenges this and implies that there is a deeper level to mental disorders than bad childhood experiences and negative cognitions. Just as how a good tree will not bear bad fruits but only good ones, a bad tree will only bear bad fruits but not good ones. The heart of the matter is actually the matter of the heart.
 

We have reduced the Word to a tool we use to counsel others instead of it being the shed in which we work. As God’s creation, we need our Creator who knows us best. When we don’t put God into the picture when trying to address issues of the heart, we only see the tip of the iceberg while the rest of it remains unraveled. This could be one of the main reasons why the chance of relapsing for mental disorders still remains high even with major advances in treatment methodology. We consult the help of psychologists who prescribe medication to suppress our negative emotions and all this does is to make it easier to control the physical manifestations of that reality. 

Cognitive treatments attempt to change the way we perceive the world but it does not involve the transformation of the soul (or spirit). This only goes to show the depravity of man, man’s need for God, and how we are like fish out of water the more we try to help ourselves without consulting the incomparable wisdom of the Lord most high. Without God, we are merely using filthy rags to wipe the stains on our hearts when what we really need is a complete change of heart which can only be accomplished by the work of the Holy Spirit.
 

This has been a subject of poignant interest for me and I have much to learn and internalize from what I heard on Thursday. I am still realigning and reconciling what I learn in Psychology with my identity in Christ but have since taken on a new perspective: Psychology is but a tool; the Word is my shed in which I work and being Christ’s follower is my vocation.

Amanda Pan