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Writer's pictureEdmund Ng

B18: Converted through Counseling Evangelism

Kon is a family man with three children in their twenties. He is a non-believer, and we have a close friend who have been witnessing to him for years. She brought him to attend church twice, but Kon remained disinterested in having anything to do with Christianity.


            One day, I received a call from our friend that Kon was having financial difficulties, and his family was on the verge of breaking up. Although Kon had a stable and comfortable job, I was told that he had been travelling to Vietnam with a business associate to pursue a new business start-up there and he was heavily in debt with the credit card companies. There came a time when those financial institutions threatened to make him a bankrupt for defaulting in his repayments.   


            Following this, Kon made an unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide and in his desperation, he agreed with our friend’s suggestion to see me for counseling.



Symptomatic intervention


            Kon came to his first counseling session looking very devastated. I started by asking him about his suicide attempt. He regretted that he did not have the courage to cut his wrist deeper to bleed himself to death. I then began to probe with him his most felt reasons for killing himself. He cited the hopelessness of his situation, and the shame of being made a bankrupt.


            I continued by exploring with him the consequences of his bankruptcy. Kon agreed that he can still find a job and earned some money for his family’s monthly expenses. He is also prepared to scale down his lifestyle. So, I reasoned with him that if he can last through the statutory bankruptcy period, he could start all over again with his family intact. The rationale is that if he can still survive what would be the worst scenario of a most-probable consequence, then there is hope and he need not be shameful of what’s ahead. All people make mistakes and to err is human. He made a judgment error in embarking on the business pursuit and there is nothing to be ashamed of.


            As a safeguard, Kon consented that he would call me if at any time, he is prompted to kill himself again. To learn more on how to help people with suicidal intent, kindly watch our SSC Teaching Video V03 entitled “Suicide Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention” accessible through our website under Monthly Videos.


Connecting to the root cause


            I started our second counseling session by asking Kon why despite having a stable and comfortable job and a happy family, he still wanted to venture into doing a new business start-up in a foreign land. Kon said he first got interested in the business pursuit when his friend invited him to partner with him on a 50% profit-sharing basis. According to him, Vietnam is fast developing, and the Government is offering good incentives for foreigners to invest in that country. Many of their trips there were spent on entertaining high-ranking officials to try to secure from them projects issued with very favorable terms. They were close to landing on one, but it got slip away to another competitor in the last minute.


            Meanwhile, Kon has been drawing on his credit cards and loans to finance his share of the overseas expenditures until the financial institutions took legal action against him for his repayment defaults. He had used up all his savings and even borrowed money from his relatives and friends. He blamed himself for this mess because of his greed. In his younger days, he had always dreamed of himself becoming the wealthy boss of a big business so that he will be very well respected and live a happy life.


            At this juncture, I gently asked him why it is so important for him to be well respected by others? He said he grew up in a poor family and people looked down on him due to his poverty. But I confronted him with the fact that there are lots of wealthy men that we do not respect, and we also know of many rich men who are miserable in life. Soon, we started to explore together what really is his source of respect and self-worth.


Aligning the core heart issues         


            The problem with his thinking is that if people will respect him if he is wealthy, then logically in the event his business fails and he loses his riches, he will also lose their respect. What’s the point then of entrusting one’s life and wellbeing in the uncertain fortunes of our business success and the changing opinions of men? More importantly, our happiness in fact does not depend on how much money we have or how others see us but in having the right perspective as to who we are as a person.


            Ultimately, what we pursue as respect from others depends on what we see as our self-worth. If our self-worth is secured, we don’t need the praise of men as the source of our respect. When the almighty God first created us, we are secured under His care. In other words, our self-worth is secured in whom we belong as a child of God. But when the first humans sinned, we are separated from God’s family as we have inherited the sin from them. Thus, we lost that security and began to seek our self-worth in the eyes of men. However, this is only fleeting and temporary as how people see us is always changing.


            As such, we need a Savior who can restore us back to God’s family through paying the price for our sin. Jesus Christ who was crucified on the cross to redeem us is that Savior. By accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are reunited back into God’s family and regain back our security as a child of God. This means our self-worth is once again secured in God in whom we belong. So we now seek to please God and not please men or derive our respect from them as the source of our self-worth.

           

Conclusion


            I also emphasized to Kon that as we live our lives secured in God, He will care and provide for us. Instead of depending solely on our own efforts, people, circumstances, money and the provisions of this world, we can now depend on God and seek Him for our every need, decision and action. In that way, God will help him to weather through those difficult years of his statutory bankruptcy and lead him into a new chapter of his life filled with hope for the future.


            Kon caught the gist of what I was sharing with him, and I could sense that his “heart was strangely warmed” under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. When he gave his life to receive Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord, we both rejoiced with tears and laughter. It has been 5 years and Kon has been actively serving in a local church. His family is intact, and they are looking forward to the wedding of their eldest daughter. Once a while, I followed up with him to check on how he is doing and continued to help and guide him on some of his mental health and spiritual issues.


Dr. Edmund Ng

SSC Facilitator          

26 Jul 2024


Corresponding SSC monthly teaching video: V18 – Counseling Evangelism at

 

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