Another particularly dramatic experience teaching me to let Jesus drive happened this past spring (2012). I was facilitating a demonstration session in one of our mentoring groups, and about ten minutes into the session the recipient, Rita, asked a question. It was a good question, asking for both clarification regarding the personal meaning of the memories she was working with and explanation regarding a theoretical point, and after a few moments of thought I had a really good answer. Just before opening my mouth to share my ideas, the thought occurred to me, “I wonder what would happen if I coach her to focus on Jesus and ask Him, instead of just giving the answer myself?” To be painfully honest, my immediate internal response to this thought was something along the lines of, “Yeah, that’s a nice idea, but the Lord sometimes seems to take His time with respect to answering questions – He’s too relaxed, too willing to waste time, and not adequately concerned about making the best use of the session. Furthermore, He often seems to speak so quietly that it takes a bit of work to make sure we are accurately hearing and understanding His answer. I think we’ll get a usable answer a lot more quickly if I just take care of it myself.”

But then I had second thoughts, “You know, this is a training group, where trying new stuff and learning is more important than efficiency. So maybe I’ll coach her to ask Jesus, just to see what happens.” So I did, and sure enough, there was a long pause – we’re in this strategic training group, with a whole room full of busy people trying to learn stuff, and Jesus waits for a couple minutes before answering the question. And then we had to take some more time for me to coach Rita to verbalize what she thought she was hearing from the Lord. But when Rita finally described what she perceived as the Lord’s answer, I was amazed to realize that it was exactly what I would have said. Well, actually, not exactly what I would have said. The Lord’s answer was actually more precise, more elegant, and more carefully nuanced than what I had been about to offer, and He didn’t repeat Himself or get distracted by tangential digressions. But the core content was the same. And the Lord seemed to have a quiet but profound authority clearly beyond what I carry. I’m sure that if I had answered her question Rita would have listened to me, and she would have seriously considered the probability that my thoughts were valid, but subtle uncertainties would have lingered around the edges. In contrast, when she heard these same thoughts from the Lord she immediately had a deep, peaceful sense of confidence that they were true. It was done. No additional discussion was needed, and we moved on.

And then about fifteen minutes later it happened again. Rita asked a good question, requiring an answer that would both clarify the personal meaning of the memories she was working with and explain a theoretical point; after a few moments of thought I had a really good answer; just before opening my mouth to share my ideas, the thought occurred to me, “I wonder what would happen if I coach her to focus on Jesus and ask Him, instead of just giving the answer myself?”; I felt the same skeptical assessment that we would probably get a usable answer much more quickly if I just answered the question myself; and I had the thought, “You know, this is a training group, where trying new stuff and learning is more important than efficiency. So maybe I’ll coach her to ask Jesus, just to see what happens.” Once again, I went ahead and did this, there was a long pause before Jesus answered the question, and then we had to take more time for me to coach Rita to verbalize what she thought she was hearing from the Lord. Once again, I was amazed to realize that the Lord’s answer was exactly what I would have said, except clearer, more elegant, more carefully nuanced, without repetitions or digressions, and carrying His special authority. And once again, when she heard the answer from Jesus she immediately had a deep, peaceful sense of confidence that it was true. It was done. No discussion was needed, and we moved on.

Ten minutes later Rita asked another question, and after a few moments of thought I had a really good answer, but this time I then jumped right to, “Okay Lord, I get the point. You want me to coach her to ask You.” So I coached Rita to focus on Jesus and present her question to Him, but this time I  was much more patient through the long pause as we waited for Jesus to answer and I had more positive expectation as I coached Rita to verbalize what she thought she was hearing from the Lord. And even though it had just happened twice in the last 35 minutes, I was still amazed that the Lord’s answer was exactly what I would have said, except clearer, more elegant, more carefully nuanced, without repetitions or digressions, and carrying His special authority. Once again, when she heard the answer from Jesus she immediately had a deep, peaceful sense of confidence that it was true. No additional discussion was needed, and we moved on.

When Rita paused to ask another good question fifteen minutes later, I thought, “Wow. You’re really making a point here Jesus.” And even though I once again had a good answer that I wanted to share, I went right to coaching her to focus on Jesus and ask Him. There was the familiar long pause while we waited for Jesus to answer, I supplied the familiar coaching to help Rita verbalize what she thought she was hearing from the Lord, and then for the fourth time in less than an hour Jesus said just what I would have said, but better. On one hand, it was encouraging to see that I was thinking along the same lines as Jesus. It was kind of like being able to check the answers at the back of the book – “Hey, I’m still on the right track! That’s nice to know.” But it was also humbling to see Jesus provide yet another answer that was clearer, more elegant, more carefully nuanced, more concise, and carrying more authority than what I had to offer. And, not surprisingly, when she heard the answer from Jesus she immediately had a deep, peaceful sense of confidence that it was true. No discussion was needed, and we moved on.

When Rita paused to ask yet another question ten minutes later, I immediately thought, “Okay Lord, I think we can all see that You are really trying to make a point here.” As usual, I had some good ideas about what needed to be said, but by this point in the session it was pretty obvious that I should just jump right to coaching her to engage directly with Jesus regarding her question. So I did. There was still a long pause while we waited for Jesus to answer, and I still had to coach Rita to verbalize what she thought she was hearing from the Lord, but this time I was waiting with eager anticipation to see if He would do it again. Sure enough, for the fifth time in little more than an hour Jesus brought truth that made the exact same core points I had wanted to make, but with more clarity, elegance, nuance, and efficiency. And, as always, His answer came with a special authority, so that Rita immediately had a deep, peaceful sense of confidence that it was true. She was thoroughly satisfied, no discussion was needed, and we moved on.

By this point in the session I was very impressed with the Lord’s thoroughness and cleverness with respect to the teaching point He had just made, and I also felt like I had a good sense of where the rest of the session was going to go. Rita was in the middle of working on an important unresolved issue, and the Lord had just taken her to what looked like the key root memory. It all looked fairly straight forward – she just needed to work through a few unfinished processing tasks, the key root trauma would then be resolved, and we would be home free. To be totally honest, I felt like I could handle the rest of the session by myself. I wasn’t planning on grabbing the wheel from Jesus, but I felt like I could have taken care of the situation if Jesus had gotten called away for an emergency.

And then Rita suddenly said something along the lines of, “I can’t do this….This memory is too big – it’s too much – I don’t know how to handle this….I feel like I’m not able to work through this one – I can’t do it.” We only had about twenty minutes left before the end of the group, and Rita seemed to be completely stuck. Even after taking some time to think and listen for guidance, I couldn’t come up with a plan that would quickly deal with her apparent lack of the capacity and maturity skills needed to work through the traumatic memory that had somehow suddenly gotten bigger and more complicated. The lesson so far seemed to have been, “Coach the person to take her questions to Jesus, even when you think you have good answers yourself,” but at this point I didn’t feel like I had much choice. I had no idea what to do, and was more than happy to apply the “Coach the person to engage directly with Jesus at every point in the session” Immanuel approach principle. So I coached Rita to focus on Jesus, ask Him for guidance/help, and then describe whatever came into her awareness.

After a long pause (Jesus, don’t You realize how little time we have left?), Rita reported that she was now in a completely different memory. This new memory was clearly much less complicated and less intense, and Rita seemed ready and willing to work with it, but it also seemed to be completely unrelated to the strategic traumatic memory in which she had just been stuck. I was actually quite disappointed. I had hoped that the Lord would have some plan for working through the larger memory that seemed to be so key to the issue we had been working with, instead of just saying, “I can’t help her get through that one either, so let’s just go find something smaller and easier.” I was a bit puzzled and disappointed, but I figured we might as well work with what we had, so I kept coaching her to ask Jesus for guidance and help regarding the new memory.

She worked through this new memory quickly and easily, and then with about five minutes left, she popped out with, “Oh, wow! Now Jesus is taking me back to the other memory, and I’m just realizing that the key issue in the little memory we just resolved is the exact same as the key issue in the other memory that felt like it was too big for me.” After pausing for a few moments to think about what she had just said, the rest of us were all able to see the connection; but none of us had caught this until she had pointed it out. Rita then went on to explain, “The main reason the bigger memory felt like too much for me was that I didn’t know how to go about working through the situation – I didn’t feel like I could handle such an intense memory when I had no idea regarding how to work with it. So Jesus took me to a smaller memory with the same issue, and then showed me what to do and helped me practice in the less intense memory.” Now that she had a clear battle plan for how to work through the traumatic pieces, she willingly went with Jesus back to the memory that had previously felt impossibly difficult and intense, and with His help she was able to resolve it within the remaining five minutes.

We were all in awe. This was one of the most effective, efficient, brilliant, elegant, creative therapy interventions that any of us had ever seen. Not to mention the fact that the rest of us wouldn’t have even known about the smaller, simpler parallel memory. Somewhere in the back of my mind, after the fifth round of Jesus bringing an answer that was essentially the same as what I had I wanted to share, I was starting to feel pretty pleased with myself. I never would have said it out loud, due to the outrageous presumption, but if I gotten words for what was starting to feel true it might have been something like, “Well yeah, of course I know I’ll never be fully as good a therapist as Jesus. I mean, His answers and interventions are always a bit better than mine, but I’m getting pretty close. I mean – all false humility aside – I think I could take care of most of this by myself if I really needed to.” Now I was just in awe. “Jesus, You’re the man! I am definitely the humble student, and You are most assuredly still the master.” I think Jesus wants us to deliberately practice letting Him drive as much as possible, for reasons described earlier, but it’s especially nice to let Jesus drive when we’re completely lost.

Karl Lehman, M.D., personal collection of Immanuel stories