Over the years I’ve completed several personality profiles & they all seem to communicate the same basic picture:
I can be a jerk.
Well, that’s not how they say it. Technically I’m an Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging, Enneagram Type 8 with a 9 Wing, high-D, “Lion” who is Literary-Scientific, oriented toward the Future, and has a strong natural tendency to formulate Strategic Plans.
In other words, I’d be a good Dictator. One assessment told me my trademark saying could be something like,
“I’m really sorry you have to die.”
(The sad part is… typing that made me laugh.)
Yet God called me into ministry.
Weird.
It’d be cool if that calling came with a supernatural personality change that made me more, well, “pastoral.”
But it doesn’t work that way.
God called me “as is — no warranty” and then sent me out.
God likes doing things that way.
He called Moses (who had a speech impediment) to be his spokesman. He called David (who was a military warrior) as a harp-playing, psalmist-king. He called farmers to be prophets, and fishermen to be disciples.
God would give an HR Manager a nervous breakdown.
The apostle Paul noticed this tendency in God and wrote, “Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor 1:26-29 NLT).
Not only are we denied the opportunity to boast about our success, but we are simultaneously denied any excuse we could use for NOT doing what God has called us to do.
Brilliant!
Has God called you to do something you feel ill-equipped to handle? If so, what? Are you the opposite of the ideal candidate? Perhaps that’s proof that God is calling you out…
There’s a storm brewing on the horizon of the Christian landscape. Two immensely powerful forces are aligning themselves in a way that is likely to change church-as-we-know-it forever.
