Dr Don Durham

07/15/2022

Check out our "new and improved" website at ChristianCounselingServicesAZ.com! Please let us know any way we can serve you....

06/07/2020

I want summa dat!

03/01/2020

07/26/2019

Checking in for a Refresher weekend with EMDR training! I’m anticipating this will be a point of beginning for many, many new opportunities....

04/25/2019

I am delighted to announce that I have recently affiliated with Christian Counseling Services! Led by Jennifer Cecil, LPC, one of the most established counseling practices in the Valley of the Sun, I will be joining this team of gifted counselors to help open an East Valley office for the group. Although I am currently seeing a limited number of private clients, I will be expanding that accessibility as we move into an office on Southern Ave. close to Val Vista - more details to follow as a later date. And we will offer the full range of counseling services presently available at other Christian Counseling Services offices as the East Valley office swings into high gear. If you have not already "liked" my page please do so and receive updates as this exciting development unfolds....

12/21/2018

Advent #3 - Joy! 12-16-18

The third candle in an Advent Wreath is often identified with joy. The first thing that comes to mind is the confusion of joy with happiness. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – “inalienable rights” of human beings – right? I don’t know – honestly, I think happiness is over-rated. From the same root as ‘happening,’ the emotional state of happiness is so dependent on external circumstances that it seems to be largely out of one’s control – happiness is happenstance, as it were! Furthermore, as much as I hate to admit it, I am aware that we all grow more during tough times; of course, these testing periods must be balanced by times of refreshment – but frequently we think of happiness as endless leisure, with no challenge! And finally, I am equally sure that God is much more interested in our character than our comfort – and that character is developed through suffering.

But joy actually has very little if anything to do with happiness! Tim Maughan, Lead Pastor at Redemption Church Gilbert (AZ) says, “Joy is an approach to life, not a reaction to it” (12/16/18). That approach to life is simply put but requires a lifetime of practice. Joy is much more closely linked to the concept ‘blessed” in Matthew 5, than to happiness. Joy is a state of inner contentment that comes from being rightly aligned with God. So. the pursuit of happiness? – I think that this is a vain pursuit, that we will all, in fact, go through seasons of happiness and seasons of sorrow, whether we like it or not! What this means is that joy comes from pursuing God rather than pursuing happiness.

So this week – I wish you joy. If you get a little happiness, I’m glad for you. But whatever you receive in the way of circumstances – I pray you can “count it all joy!”

12/19/2018

Advent #2 – Peace – 12-9-18

The second candle in the Advent Wreath is in honor of Peace. I have had the greatest difficulty writing this post, I think because there is so little peace around me! “Wars and rumors of wars,” the reality that “in this world you will have tribulation” – these sentiments have seemingly blocked my experience of peace. This experience has been troubling for me. My usual sign-off at the end of email messages is “Peace.” In some ways I’m guessing this is a hangover from my “Jesus freak” hippy days in the 70’s – you know, “peace, love, dove, and Bobby Sherman!” Don’t get me wrong, I am a believer in the “just war” hypothesis: as the writer of Ecclesiastes says, there is a time for war and a time for peace. However, it is also true that we live in the Age of Anxiety – and there is no greater killer of peace than anxiety.

I am realizing, however, that the pain of this awareness of “no peace” in the world only emphasizes how desperately we need Advent – the Coming – of the Prince of Peace. That Prince Himself said “my peace I give to you.” It is not a worldly peace – there is no peace in human striving. Paul said that the Peace of Christ transcends all understanding. This is perhaps the sweetest gift of Advent.

The Jews hungered after this Peace for hundreds of years, as reflected in the word, shalom. The Hebrew understanding of peace includes wellness, wholeness, contentment, a lack of contention – even financial wellbeing! This peace that we are promised is not some passive absence of drama in our lives; no, it is something tangible, something you can sink your teeth into – this is the peace God wants us to have.

So, a week late in this Advent season, I greet you – “Shalom, y’all!”