by Jennifer Ervin
As people we love to try to figure out who we are – and what we’re passionate about in life. This is evident in the thousands of different personality profiles you can take or read about. I love personality tests!! Its the psychology nerd part of me. I always test Phlegmatic – which is code word for BORING. Over the years deep down I’ve hated that no matter how many tests I take it always says I’m the steady one, great listener, loyal, calm….B-O-R-I-N-G!!!!! Of course I know those characteristics aren’t necessarily bad but sometimes I have this inner desire to be the emotional one… you know the train wreck person that tells it all. Or the life of the party – the person who works the room and speaks to everyone and has like a million close friends. Or what about the melancholy personality? They think deeply – feel deeply – and are moved by beauty. Okay these are also the people who most often struggle with depression but dang I never think about that when reading the personality profiles. I just think how cool it might be to be so “deep” – and then I look over at the poor phlegmatic description…there it is again you peace-maker you…Boring – yawn!!
So it all comes back to this thought, we are people who desperately want to be known and connected to something that we are passionate about. Many times I blame my personality when I’m being slow to respond or move forward. Recently, God has revealed to me that I don’t move or seek something because at my core I’m fearful. My thoughts start to sound like this…What if it doesn’t work out? What if I look incompetent? Maybe I should just leave this up to all those people who like to be in the front of the crowd… I’ll just try to be happy here in the back.
Now hear me out I really like the back of the crowd! Some of us were made for the back row. I am most peaceful and comfortable back in the back cheering on those front row people. But the Father has been whispering lately “don’t let fear hold you back”. The kind of fear that I’m talking about is when you live life within narrow boundaries. Caution and control are very important with each step you take or don’t take. David Benner, in Surrender to Love, writes, “What she most feared was the strength of her feelings. She worried that if she allowed herself to really feel anything strongly she might have to act on it. And she intuitively knew that doing so would force her to abandon the self-control behind which she hid.” O Father help us all to hear you in letting go of our fears – our control – let us lean into what you say in 2 Corinthians 3:4.
“Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.”
I am a bow in your hands, Lord.
Draw me, lest I rot.
Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break.
Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break?