We all live, in our formation into Christlikeness, at the crossroads of failure and grace.
We would be wise to meditate on the impact of both on our story – how they gently dance together in our everyday thoughts and actions.
Have a blessed weekend, friends.
Divine Wiring #3: The Analytical Ones
Recently I was presenting on temperaments and spirituality in a class at Parkview and a man asked a question about why he had to think everything through so extensively.
He had identified with the NT (intuitive/thinking) temperament, and he asked if it affected a person’s whole life. I said “Yes” and then asked, “What do you do for a living?”
He smiled and said, “I’m an accountant.” I said, “I had a feeling.”
I’m not psychic (though I know you were convinced I was), the simple truth is that our temperaments determine a great deal of our life decisions. The whole point of this “Divine Wiring” series is to try and see where our temperaments can be harnessed to relate to God.
And now, the NT’s.
Authors Michael & Norissey in their book Prayer and Temperament assign each temperament type a saint that had similar characteristics. They assigned the NT temperament to St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest scholars in the history of Christianity. The reason is that the NT temperament is a thoughtful, rational, and analytical temperament. NT’s need to see the history of an idea and think it through from every possible angle before they can come to terms with it. They love intellectual challenges – puzzles like Sudoku appeal to a NT and they are most alive when they are challenged by an idea or thought that is difficult to process.
The downside of the NT is that moving from thinking to action doesn’t happen naturally, and sometimes the need to think through ideas can be paralyzing. NT’s can also struggle with pride as their academic and intellectual strength may lead them to put those who are not as intellectually gifted or driven at a lower status than themselves. They understand process very well, how to get from point A to point B, but an interruption in that logical movement can be difficult for them to navigate.
Here are some keys to a NT’s relationship with God:
1. Take time in prayer to think on one Biblical idea or aspect of God. Choose grace, holiness, justice, or sovereignty and spend time thinking about how these concepts work. Imagine that they are on display at a museum, and mentally walk around the display noticing the different aspects of each concept.
2. Bring intellectually stimulating reading into your life regularly. God has given you a deep desire to use your brain, and the best way to do that is to stretch it. Reading authors like Timothy Keller, N.T. Wright, and Dallas Willard will bring your mind to focus on ideas and understandings of God that will engage your natural thinking and reasoning skills plus it will give God space to transform you through your mind.
3. Discipline yourself to serve actively on a regular basis. NT’s are typically good at seeing where they fall short and creating a plan for how to fix their issues. This can be a roadblock to depending on God’s grace from time to time, however when it comes to moving from thinking to acting an NT can use that natural discipline to bring regular serving opportunities into their lives. Find a local food bank, soup kitchen, shelter or simply engage in service at your local church. Take the things that you are learning and mull them over as you apply your hands to the work of service.
4. Find a spiritual director to help you soften your “T.” The ancient spiritual writers talked about prayer as “descending with the mind into the heart.” Just as spending time in the mind without action is dangerous, spending time thinking without an avenue to let those thoughts change our motivations can be hazardous to our spiritual health as well. A trained spiritual director can help you move from the thoughts that God is placing before you to how those thoughts should change your motivations for living each day. They will guide you to see how the thoughts God is bringing you through prayer and intuition (remember, you’re still an “N” as well) come together to shape you and your formation into the likeness of Christ. You can find a list of spiritual directors here or you could contact your local church for more resources.
I pray that those of you who wear the NT temperament find God active in your minds, as you take in the world and think it through, may His thoughts be your thoughts and may you move from thinking to doing the bold and beautiful work of the Kingdom today.
If you want to catch up on the other temperaments, you can find them here:
Divine Wiring #1 – The Sensitive Ones (NF)
Divine Wiring #2 – The Driven Ones (SJ)
You can also take the FREE temperament sorter here to find out your temperament.
Brain Training = Healthy Mission
If you read the Bible for long, you’ll come across a well-traveled passage in Romans:
Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind… (Romans 12:2)
I like this passage because it says that our lives will never be completely transformed until we allow God’s Spirit to renew what we think about. Renewal – to make new again, to make fresh – helps us take in the world differently and therefore we can respond to the world differently.
The problem is that I think about garbage many times. I think about my golf swing. I think about my virtual golf swing. I think about sports. I think about sex. In and of themselves these aren’t wrong per se, but the exaggerated and prolonged meditation on these things can be destructive because those thoughts will set my motivations for the day. So, exaggerated thinking about my golf game will determine how I carry out my mission for God that day. Frightening.
Into this discussion enters this question from Dallas Willard:
Does our mind spontaneously return to God when not intensely occupied, as the needle of the compass turns to the North Pole when removed from nearer magnetic sources. Our answer to (this) question makes us sadly aware of how our mind is solidly trained in false ways. (Hearing God, 153 paraphrased)
What do we think of when we have nothing to think of at all?
Where does our brain go when it has no where else to go?
What happens if we trained ourselves to, as Frank Laubach suggested, think on God one minute of every hour of every day and build up from there?
How would our mission to the world in our communities and workplaces change if we became incurably mindful of God-at-work in our midst?
The key to formissional living is to have our lives formed around constant thinking on the missional God working in the here and now.
A Correction to Contentment
For a long time now, I’ve carried some strong convictions about pursuing contentment. Jesus’ words on “the birds of the air” and how since my Father takes care of them that I should “not worry.” (Mt. 5:26, 31).
I stumbled on to a problem today, however, and it has something to do with Mother’s Day.
My wife is an active, detailed lady. Her beauty is only enhanced by the ways she can manage our often wild household schedules, and so much of her life is spent keeping things moving. For me, to give her a break is to let her have time to release the steering wheel and let someone else keep things moving. Yesterday, I attempted to do that and in my estimation did a fairly good job. This is a minor success because I can be, admittedly, a first-rate slacker because of my laid-back personality. However, I was able to flip the switch and started to get some things done.
In fact, through the evening I carried this endorphin rush of getting things done and it lasted on through this morning.
I’ve never taken speed, but I’m assuming this is what it feels like. Close enough for me, anyway.
So coming into the office this morning, buzzing, I knew that in order to be still and be content in the presence of God I needed to quiet down. The problem was that my endorphin rush was still kicking, still going, still rocking my brain with projects and ideas that needed to be done.
So, I took a moment and read Jan Johnson’s article on contentment from the most recent Weavings journal and strangely enough it was titled “Confidence: I Have Everything I Need.” Strange, I would say this was the definition of contentment but as I read on a new insight dawned on me. Jan used Psalm 23 as a basis and talked about that first phrase, “The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need.” Here’s where I landed from there:
If I have my identity, sustenance, and life in God alone and if He is truly the Vine (John 15) and my job is simply to remain in Him, then contentment isn’t inaction, but action minus the anxiety of outcomes.
In other words, I can have grand failures and unnoticed successes and yet in all things be content that in any and every situation I am found and sustained in Christ my Lord and Him alone.
Let us begin this week living grandly without hindrances knowing that what we do in the pursuit of His Kingdom, out of contentment in Him alone, allow us to enter the playground of the miraculous.
Random Thoughts After Having Teeth Pulled
Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of having my two top wisdom teeth taken out. Now, by “top” I don’t mean they outperformed the other wisdom teeth, I mean they were the ones on my top row of teeth.
Thought I should clarify that.
In essence, it took nearly 10-15 minutes to numb the areas of my mouth and about 4 minutes total to pop out the teeth. Apparently my teeth came straight down, making them easier to pull yet the sound of root and bone crunching was not completely dissipated. I went home with gauze stuffed in my face, my tongue feeling like a wet washcloth, and promptly sat down and wondered when I’d need ibuprofen. Here are my random and somewhat senseless reflections on this joyous experience.
1. Western medicine has it’s upsides – I didn’t have to take a shot of whiskey or participate in any number of remedial pain relief tactics. Topical anesthesia then a needle full every four millimeters of my palate did the trick.
2. Dentists have a really difficult job – in my preparation for this procedure all I heard were horror stories of dental adventures gone completely wrong. My dentist laughed, “Weird, they never talk about the root canals that worked out well.” I tip my cap to you, O baron of the bicuspids.
3. Once you’re numb, anything can happen to you – when someone asks “Can you feel this?” and you reply “Can I feel what?” you are in the place of having your brain detached from the actual events going on in your mouth. I truly believe this happens to us when we cease to open our hearts to God in prayer and honestly present our challenges to Him.
Until our hearts break for Him, because of Him, and through Him we will become increasingly numb to the overall Kingdom purposes He has for us.
Until next week, peace friends.
Divine Wiring #2: The Driven Ones
You make a checklist.
You check off the checklist.
The day cannot end unless the checklist is complete, and you’ll struggle to sleep if one box isn’t marked.
You are one of the proud SJ temperaments.
I love SJ’s – primarily because I’m married to one – because they counterbalance all the NF’s like me in the world. The SJ’s are the driven, committed, and administratively-gifted folks who create processes and plans that make things happen. They are often the rational scientists, processing the world through tangible proof (taste, touch, see, smell) and they have an acute sense of right and wrong. They are often the ones who are out crusading for the truth.
The high sense of commitment is an SJ’s most prized asset, but it can also kill them because they often use this phrase: “Someone has to do it, it might as well be me.” They struggle with saying no, unplugging, and working as a team. They aren’t anti-social, but sometimes their task-oriented nature leads them to overvalue the job and undervalue the co-workers.
So, what does an SJ do to harness their personality in shaping their lives around Christ? I’m so glad you asked…
- Pray with a list. My favorite quote from Andrew Murray is, and I may butcher this, “The only failure in prayer is cessation.” We’ve done damage by saying that any kind of form or structure in prayer is unholy or immature. SJ’s need to structure their time with God so that they’re able to move naturally into prayer. However, SJ’s need to make sure that they experiment with more open-ended prayer from time to time so that they allow space for God to develop their “dark side.”
- Make community a spiritual discipline. Spiritual disciplines are activities we do in order to change that which we can’t directly change on our own. SJ’s can become individualized and closed off to others, which limits their ability to become more relational and sympathetic with others. A small group, discipleship triad, or mentorship could be a great place to train an SJ out of being an island of their own.
- Remember “quality, not quantity” when reading the Bible. The SJ’s typically like the “read the whole Bible in a year” plans because it has a daily assignment aspect and a sense of achievement at the end. However these reading plans rarely allow for people to spend adequate time reflecting on what each passage means to the life of a follower of Jesus. If you have to set a time limit, that’s fine, but make sure to spend time with a manageable passage of Scripture – one that will allow you to think about the implications fully.
- Learn to say “No.” SJ’s find themselves scooping up every job, task, and leadership responsibility they can because of their “if no one else will do it, I will” wiring. There has to be an active process for an SJ of discerning what fits their area of strength and setting priorities for themselves at work, home, and local church community. Setting time for a true Sabbath rest – a time (8 hours or so) of being disconnected from work responsibilities to “waste time” with God and family – will be key to balancing the powerful work ethic of the SJ and helping them experience the peace and rest that Jesus promises those who follow Him. The Sabbath reminds the SJ that despite what they may believe, it isn’t their effort that keeps the world turning. It is God who does that work.
Next Wednesday, we’ll deal with the scholarly NT’s. Until then, peace friends.
If you missed the last post in this series, you can read it here.
Getting it In, Getting it Out
This past Friday Parkview hosted the Chik-Fil-A Leadercast conference. Some great insights came out, and I found myself occasionally saying:
I have to do something with this.
I realized as I said it how critical these moments are for us as world-influencing “spiritual entrepreneurs” (more on this concept in a later post) because that insight or quote could lead to incredible growth and development within us that will drive us to change the world with the Kingdom story. 
So what do we do? The typical knock on conferences is that by the time you leave the venue, drive home, and put the notebook/journal they gave you on a shelf, you’ve forgotten half of the really good information you heard. If not more than half…
Seriously, think about the conferences that you’ve attended, the messages you’ve heard, the TED talks you’ve watched – how many of those have actually changed a core motivation or activity in your life? How many of them have lasting power beyond the moment in which you witness them?
The reality that I came to, standing and listening to the Leadercast, is this:
If we do not have a place to process the stirrings of our heart – those blasts that come from things we hear or insights we receive – they will not make a lasting difference in our lives.
What do you use to make sure you process things well? Here are a few suggestions:
- Moleskine journal – great, tidy way of recording insights for future review. I like the lined version.
- Action Method – whether you use the print or online version it gives you a way of putting your ideas in a place where they can be easily retrieved.
- Evernote - write it, record it, tag it, search it – these are all helpful pieces
- An idea partner – find someone in your life to share a whiteboard moment with, someone who has similar passions but not necessarily the same type of role. Let them provide feedback on your ideas.
God is constantly speaking, the whisper in the wind. (1 Kings 19:12)
It’s hard enough to hear a whisper, and in our sensory-washed culture it’s even harder to remember whisper.
How do you remember the whispers of God today?
How to Be Imitated
Today I read the end of 2 Thessalonians and Paul makes an incredibly interesting statement there about his time in Thessalonica:
…nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we did not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. (2 Thess. 3:8-9)
We had a right, as apostles, to have you support us. We gave them up and worked alongside of you. So, go and do the same thing. The Thessalonians were struggling with idleness because they expected the return of Christ soon and in turn decided that it didn’t make sense to work and provide for themselves and their families. They were just waiting for Jesus to come back and make everything right. Paul, Silvanus and Timothy set a different agenda: follow us and wait for Him but don’t become idle.
Those of us who lead and influence the spiritual lives of others have to be impacted at the deepest places by this concept.
How would our leadership change if we gave up our rights to power and advantage from time to time so that we could give others an example to imitate?
It sounds like we’d become more like Jesus, and so would they. Formation through imitation, on both sides of the coin.
Divine Wiring #1: The Sensitive Ones
I’m beginning a series of posts stemming from the post last week about “thinking or feeling” your way to God. Some of the insights in this series come from my doctoral thesis (I’d post it, but I don’t want to subject you to 300+ pages of torture) as well as two key resources. The first is Prayer and Temperament (Chester Michael and Marie Norrisey) and the second is Please Understand Me (David Keirsey & Marilyn Bates).
Now, on with the show…
When I take the Keirsey-Bates temperament sorter*, which has it’s roots in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I find that I am an NF temperament. These two letters stand for an “intuitive/feeling” temperament. I call these folks “The Sensitive Ones.” It doesn’t mean that other temperaments aren’t sensitive, it simply means that this is an NF’s primary “residence.” Here’s what the NF means, in a nutshell:
I take in the world through the emotional lens. How do I feel about the things that are happening? How does the world effect me emotionally?
I make decisions based on intuition. I process the world through hunches and gut feelings and plan my actions accordingly.
I don’t think these psychological tests are on par with Scripture, but I do think they can give us insight into how we can relate with God better. Honestly, He designed us and is seeking to redeem us as we are, not as we should be. There are parts of being an NF that aren’t great – sometimes I miss out on important decisions that need to be processed factually rather than emotionally. NF temperaments get antsy when they have too many boundaries and restrictions and given the fact that they aren’t often detail-oriented they usually suffer in their ability to stay organized and do administrative tasks.
Guilty as charged.
But what does this have to do with the way an NF relates to God? The upside of an NF is that they are the “kings of the possible” – they are always seeking improvement and pursuing possibilities, so they are open many times to new ways of growing spiritually. Also, the NF tends to be “inside their own head” on a regular basis so spiritual practices such as meditation and silent prayer are comfortable and critical to their balance and growth.
Here are a few key hints for you, my fellow NF, in your interaction with God:
- Allow time for prayer – you will likely struggle with highly structured prayer times, so allow yourself to become comfortable with winding, meandering conversations with God. It would help, however, to balance these prayers with something loosely formal like The Divine Hours.
- Journal your thoughts - NF, as you know, is a temperament that is rarely short on thoughts or mental conversations. We can get stuck in our heads however, and lose important insights that God may be opening to us simply because they never make it out of the room between our ears. Write down insights, thoughts, questions, and conversations that you may have during times of quiet with God. This is helpful to order your thoughts in reading Scripture as well – NF temperaments tend to get emotional impressions from the Bible, and God can teach us a great deal if we simply put those insights on a page.
- Discipline your variety – this temperament is always scouting out new resources for growth, and the Christian publishing market is all too happy to provide new ones (nothing wrong with this) but an NF needs to create some boundaries to what they choose for their growth. I recommend picking one idea (prayer, compassion, justice) per month and then explore the wide variety of ideas and practices as it relates to that idea. In other words, spend one month reading on compassion and asking God to reveal areas to you where you can practice the compassion of Jesus.
- Vacation in other temperaments- this series will cover the other three temperaments (SJ, NT, and SP) throughout the month of May. The direct opposite of the NF is the SJ temperament, and it would benefit your growth greatly to “vacation” in SJ-land for a while. Try some of the SJ practices and know that they could have a huge impact on balancing your soul.
Next Wednesday, we’ll cover the SJ temperament. The hope in all of these posts is to help you break through some of the age-old growth traps to find new ways in which God is bringing transformation to you by tapping into your natural personality.
*Feel free to take this free version of the Keirsey-Bates sorter as a way to engage with the posts that are upcoming.
Fighting For Other People
My mom taught me “You take care of yourself, let ______ worry about ______.”
In her defense, this phrase came out when I was attempting to point out injustice that my parents were bringing on me by comparing their discipline to other kid’s permissive (and apparently unconcerned) parents’ actions.
Now I get to do that to my child. Oh, how I understand so many more things now than I did then. Wisdom, I suppose.
The idea of fighting other people’s battles for them, being concerned with their well-being from a selfless, compassionate perspective, is a core element of following Jesus. As John says, “Beloved, if God so loved us we should also love one another.” (1 John 4:11, ESV). We should seek the good of others, we should look out for them, we should go to bat for them…
We should fight for them and fight on their behalf. 
In that light, I stumbled on this closing passage from Paul in Colossians:
Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis. (Colossians 4:12-13)
Did you see that? Struggled. The NRSV says “wrestling in his prayers on your behalf.” The word here is agonizomai, where we get the word “agonize.” Epaphras agonized on behalf of the Colossians so that they could be everything that God desires them to be.
Who are you wrestling for in prayer today? Who are you fighting for and bringing constantly into the presence of God for healing, strengthening, and devotion to Christ that would lead to maturity? I am convinced that if we don’t wrestle for each other, we could be missing incredible opportunities to love radically and recklessly through prayer.
Think about taking the next month, since we’re on the first day this works out well, and “wrestle” for one person in God’s presence for the entire month. Ask God to renew, restore, correct, direct and bless that person – what are the possibilities?
