The Gospel and Being a Therapist, Part 1: Identifying With Christ in Weakness

Early in my training, someone gave me two sentences that have shaped how I think about this work more than almost anything else I’ve learned since. First: Jesus identifies with us most in our greatest weakness and our deepest need. Second: when we’re operating at our best, we’re operating out of gratitude — pouring out what has already been poured into us. I want to sit with the first one today.

There’s a way of thinking about faith and mental health that treats them as separate lanes — spiritual growth over here, emotional health over there, occasionally overlapping but fundamentally different projects. I don’t experience it that way, and the longer I sit with clients, the more convinced I become that they were never meant to be separated.

Here’s what I mean. In any given session, the person sitting across from me is almost always the one most identified with Christ in the room — not because of anything they’ve done, but because of where they are: in weakness, in need, in a place they cannot fix on their own. That’s exactly where the gospel says Jesus meets people. Not in our competence. In our need.

What this means practically is that part of my job is looking for that weakness in my client with reverence rather than pity — receiving it, not rushing past it, trusting that this is holy ground rather than a problem to be solved quickly. But there’s a second, harder part: I have to connect with the weak and needy part of myself while I’m sitting there too. Being kind to that part. Listening to it. Bringing it, quietly, into the room and to God, even while I’m supposed to be the one helping.

I’ve noticed a few reliable signs that I’ve lost that connection in a session — a flatness, a kind of demotivation that isn’t physical tiredness so much as not wanting to be present. Or the opposite: a subtle pride, a sense of having it together that isn’t rooted in gratitude. Irritation and resentment toward a client, or their situation, are another signal. When I notice any of these, the answer isn’t to try harder. It’s to go back to the weak part of myself, and bring it, again, to Jesus.

If you’re a helper of any kind — a therapist, a pastor, a parent, a friend someone leans on — I don’t think this principle is only for clinicians. The temptation to lead from strength, competence, and control is everywhere. But the deepest healing I’ve witnessed, in others and in myself, has never come from having it together. It’s come from being known, fully, in the place where I don’t.