A trend that I’ve watched develop in the last year or so within my friend circle is an obsession with the Myers-Briggs personality profile.
When I got to Training Camp, there were several people excited to meet me, touch me (I have never been touched so much in my life) and know what my Myers-Briggs was.
“What’s your type?”
“Blonde hair and blue eyes!”
I made this mistake once.
Every time I was asked, “What’s your type?!”, the response ranged from the pleasant, “Cool!” to the asker nodding emphatically and reassuring me that, Yes, they actually had a friend back home who was the exact same!, so therefore they totally understood me.
Sometimes, the conversation continued to personal hobbies and funny stories; but sometimes, it ended right there.
This made me kinda sad. Okay, more than kinda.
It makes me sad that we actually think a 16-category personality test can provide any person with enough averaged, analyzed information to satisfy a need to know someone.
Equally sad is that some of us think our MB profile has the authority to tell us who we are.
I used to adore Meyers-Briggs. Two of the greatest loves in my life, my oldest friend and a past relationship, were my exact same MB and the exact opposite MB (respectively).
But the day someone called me a liar for personally identifying as an introvert immediately after I told a story by flapping my arms around like a seagull was the day I cast it off.
If you Google me by my four-letter MB Code, this is the product description you will discover.
INFP
Aliases: Healer, Dreamer, Idealist, and (my personal, no-holds-barred passive fave), the Mediator.
All of these things are true. None of these things will teach you anything about who I am.
Isabel Meyers will never know me better than Jesus knows me, or I know myself. For as loud and playful as I get with total strangers in the toy aisle at Target or at my workplace, I will always choose my headphones and Kierkegaard biographies over you and any spontaneous social shindig.
Extrovert? Me? Not in a thousand years.
And if I were being brutally honest, I would tell you this.
Highly, highly extroverted people scare me. They scare me because my emotional capacity to manufacture conversation is roughly the size of a kiddie pool, while theirs seems to be a sprawling Olympic pool complete with grandstands.
My few bucket-fulls of water in my pool have to last me for a whole 24 hour day, every day. And some days, it gets really hot and dry in adult world, man, and my water evaporates right up. So on days when you come over from your ten-lane aquatic masterpiece and complain that you’re tired and need to recharge with my water from my kiddie pool, I’m sorry, but I am going to knock you flat on your butt.
I believe even Jesus was an introvert. But never once did He use his personality disposition to get in the way of His ministry. And on the World Race, I want to be more like Jesus.
In order to do that, I’ve got to let go of my “I’m an introvert, let me introvert” identity default and press into the pain.
My family knows (and graciously abides) that I always need a five minute warning to finish a project before transitioning into a new activity. If this unspoken contract is ever breached or forgotten, I will temporarily exhibit the behavior of a feral child, and you will have to remind me who I am.
No one can guarantee this emotional timetable for me on a hot African day when there are fifteen children climbing me like a slippery ivory jungle gym.
Holding on to my MB identity as a spacemaker doesn’t leave enough room for me to hang onto the promises God gave me, even before I was born.
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
How many times have you heard that? You probably finished it in your head just now, before you even read the whole sentence.
But how many times have you meditated on it?
I guarantee you that you wouldn’t give a flying fig about what your co-worker or Cute Coffee Shoppe Boy thought about you if you let that fact melt down deep into your heart.
And now that I’ve probably lost half of my readership with the use of “flying fig”, I’ll end with this.
There’s a note that I have taped just above my door handle that I’ve been looking at every day for the past three years. It says,
“You are not what you’ve done. You are not what has been done to you. You are who Christ says you are.”
Myers-Briggs is a great tool to help you understand yourself, but don’t make your “product code” a part of your identity. That part, only Jesus gets a say in. This is what He says about you, Introvert or Extrovert, right now.
You are whole. (Colossians 2:9-10)
You are accepted. (Romans 15:7)
You are more important than the stars, and crowned with glory and honour. (Psalm 8:3-6)
I’m am, and always have been, a high Introvert. As a kid I had three imaginary friends, talked to flowers, and happily sat in my closet for hours listening to Harry Gregson-Williams film scores. These days, I have more than three friends (all are real), tend to strike up conversations with new people more than plants, and use my closet as a space to store my clothing.
I’ve changed a little bit. But God does not change.
And introvert or card-carrying extrovert, the World Race is for you. Your MB type might get an overhaul as God grows and transforms you more into the man or woman He desires for you to be; but if your identity is rooted and ground in love (Jesus), you will never fear losing yourself. And you won’t need to be afraid of being accepted and understood.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
Hebrews 13:8
