Did you ever find personality quizzes in magazines? Ones that would tell you what kind of person you are by the colors you like, or what kind of priorities you have or what kind of person you should be looking for in a spouse?
I used to take all of them. A friend emailed me about a book she was reading that talked about how we are created in different ways and that those different personalities worship/reach God in nine different way. I was able to peg myself pretty quick. Below you will find the listing of the different types and then a link to the on-line “quiz”. Later on in the comments, I’ll tell you what I scored. See if you can peg yourself.
Sacred Pathways: Worship Style Assessment – Nine Spiritual Temperaments
Naturalist, ..they learn more from watching an ant colony than reading a book or listening to a sermon… ” they may find they enjoy parables and Psalms most in the Bible. Sensate, they want worship to be filled with sights, smells, architecture, classical music, formal language, likely to be moved to tears at Handel’s Messiah Traditionalist, they enjoy historical dimensions of faith, ritual, symbols, sacraments, and sacrifice, regular church attendance. They might find unstructured things confusing or unfulfilling. Ascetics, they want to be left alone to pray. Solitude and simplicity. They get uncomfortable if they can not “listen to the quiet”. Activist, they love God through justice, standing against evil, truth equals confrontation. Caregivers, love by serving, what might wear someone else down charges the caregiver. IE: Mother Theresa Enthusiasts, loving God through mystery and celebration. They don’t want to just know concepts they want to be moved by them. Contemplatives, loving God through Adoration, loving the divine romance Intellectuals, live in a world of concepts, likely to be found studying.
Free On-Line Quiz to determine your worship temperament.
I have decided to shake things up in my life. This monumental decision will contradict everything I have done in the past 44 years.
I am going to try to carry a purse.
I hate purses. My stance has been they are bulky awkward and a pain in the neck (sometimes literally) to carry around. Besides they are just way too girly for me. (Did you know that there are 494 videos on YouTube called “What’s in my purse?” and the vast majority are over 8 minutes long! Ladies, you just don’t need that much stuff!) Even the diaper bag pushed it a bit. I would look at the kid and try to decide how long my errands would take compared to the holding power of the diaper that he or she was currently wearing.
My keys, driver’s license and money used to all fit neatly into a little “wallet” and I was off. But now I’ve got the cell phone and the key fobs for the car doors. And somehow my pockets don’t seem to be as big as they used to, which has nothing to do with the fact that I also seem to be growing out of my pants. (Strange, I thought all that ended with puberty. Anybody want a brownie or peach pie while we try to figure out that one?)
So I’m headed home now. UPS was scheduled to deliver it to my house today. Sounds like a good place to enter some scripture passage about the earth trembling and mountains shaking, but the LORD is steadfast and firm.
We’ll see how long this lasts or if I just need bigger pockets
Wrestling with all kinds of questions this week; none of them fun or pleasant.
And while I wrestle with the flesh, I know in the back of my mind that I have to get back to the lessons that I’ve been in the process of learning over the past seven months. Chiefly this…no matter the circumstances, the feelings, the thoughts…if I can just get with Jesus, I can rest in his peace and protection.
But the noise of my personal feelings and the noise of living and operating in a fallen world, and the chaos of sin works so hard to lock me out of the presence of Jesus. But he is faithful when we cry out to him. So last night as I asked him how I was supposed to get to that safe place with him, these lyrics came to my mind.
I am a garden enclosed
A locked garden
Here where it is you and me alone
You hedge me in
I am your resting place
Christ in me – the hope of glory
So come into your garden
So back to the entry from Jan. 29 and I feel better this morning. Not that the problems are better or have disappeared, but I have found security in the locked garden.
If these are not THE Last Days, they are your last days.
Psalm 90:12
Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 39:4-7
“Show me, O LORD, my life’s end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life.
You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Each man’s life is but a breath.
Selah
Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro:
He bustles about, but only in vain;
he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.
“But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in you.
Psalm 90:10
The length of our days is seventy years—
or eighty, if we have the strength;
yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Kelsey Bohlender – Raising whole hearted kids in an anti-christ generation
Why is there a crisis of youth falling away from the church? Because the faith of their fathers has not become personal.
Young people want to marvel (because we were created to marvel at the amazing God who created us). We must steward our children’s hearts.
In the days of Josiah, the people of God didn’t even know there was a book. You must make scripture come alive and be relevent to children. We have many opportunities to outsource our children’s spiritual lives to others. (Sunday school teachers, the church, camps, programs, etc.) We must tell them the story of God (in the Bible and in our own lives) with accuracy and urgency.
Speak of the hand of God in our own personal lives. Teach them to ask God for their own stories in him. Teach them to declare everyday who they are in him.
When you know the hour, you can sacrifice greatly.
David Sliker –
A pre-trib rapture is the greatest disconnect from God’s heart.
When we cry out to God, “Choose me, Choose me, Choose me.” Are we really ready for what that means? Because when God picks a man or woman, they are violently opposed by the world and frequently by the religious. (John 15:18-20, John 17:13-15, 1 John 3:12-14)But the glory is that a friend is only in this for love.
The church will be on earth in the tribulation, because God is going to do the greatest miracle – when all hell breaks loose on the church, belivers will stand with burning love for Jesus!
Romans 1:23 – “they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”
If you can say, “Help!”, you are eligible for the prayer movement.
You will only find true pleasure, when you find what you were created for; until then you will have a gaping hole in your life.
The most important 4 word prayer of my life: GOD, WAKE ME UP! (Ephesians 1:15-23)
We have a poverty of spirit when we think we know who God is and in reality – We Don’t Have a Clue! (Job 36:26)
Revelation 4 – They sing, have sung and will sing, “Holy, holy, holy” for millions of years and everytime is like it is for the first time. God give us an unending revelation of who you are.
We have got to have moms and dads who take risky steps to invest in the future of thier children.
“All that to say that pilgrims looking for God invariably find Him, here or there. A journey in pursuit of God is never a wasted trip.” Randy Bohlender
I hope that you had an opportunity to ready the pilgrimage post I linked to way back on June 25. Randy wrote a most excellent article about pilgrimage, and the quote above is from that post.
My pilgrimage to KC had deep impact and I’ve been savoring the words God gave me ever since. The trip was not a waste, and like the definition of “pilgrimage” says, I found once again that place of “tender affections”. Tender affection as in the immediate feeling of home among a people whose pursuit is prayer. Tender affection as in once again, God touched my heart as he has in that place before. Tender affection as in I dove into worship that moved me deeply. And tender affection as in I was able to see God move in the lives of my children to take them to a level I could not have imagined at their age.
So here goes…enjoy a week of “what God said to Kristen while she sojourned in the south.”
