Know Thy Self

In the past 8 days I've been reminded several times to "know thy self". It's easy to think that most people are like you or that they know what you mean when you say things. Last week I was watching a video on Volunteers with Craig Jutlia, in this video he talked about his personality and how other people react and respond to him. One of his points was as leaders we have to remember who we are so that we can most effectively interact with others. A few days later I was talking with my wife and she reminded me of my need to build relationships with others (as an introvert this is ofter overlooked). Then on Thursday I sat down and talked with Mike Verlinich, a great guy in our church, and we talked about our personalities and how we interact with one another and how we operate in ministry.

All this talk made me think about some of the great Bible characters, David, Moses, Noah, Jesus. I wondered if David only thought of himself as a shepherd until he stepped out in faith to fight a giant. I wondered if Moses knew himself so completely that he would argue with God about leading a nation. I wondered if Noah struggled with paranoid schitzophrenia in building a boat in the middle of the desert. I wondered if Jesus....we'll I'm pretty sure he already knew himself completely. There's one thing that seems to be common to all of these men's lives...they trusted God to do for them what they weren't able to do themselves. In each of their lives God lead them to be great men, God lead them to do more than they probably thought was possible, God revealed more about their character, personality, and capacity than they probably thought of themselves.

When I think about myself I wonder sometimes, "can I really do what I'm doing...can I really be a great pastor...can I really be something amazing for God?" So I look at who I am...I'm an Introvert (YES I AM!! and so is Craig Jutlia!)...I'm Intuitive...I'm Thinking (could also be Feeling since there are just a few percentage points different)...I'm Perceiving...According to the Myers-Briggs Test. I also have the following strenghts: Analytical, Includer, Individualization, Responsibility, and Strategic; according to the Strengths Finder test. I'm also a "Coordinator" half Beaver and half Golden Retriever according to John Trent's Strengths Wheel. As you can see my Analytical side likes personality/strengths tests.

All of this helps me understand how God made me, but it doesn't determine what I'm going to do for God. What's interesting is that God uses all kinds of people and I believe all us have the capacity, ability, and calling to help others become completely committed Christ followers. I wonder what kind of personality and strengths that those great men of the Bible had, I wonder if they ever thought of them as a liability or if they utilized them to the best of their ability? What's amazing about ministry is it doesn't matter what kind of personality you have or what your strengths are it's the hand of God on our lives that makes it possible for us to do the miraculous. We just need to make sure our personality doesn't get in the way.