Refuge
I recently took the Enneagram personality test after years of avoiding it. Everyone talking about their numbers and their wings and who was a 7 and who was a 4 and who was obviously an 8 made me roll my eyes. But I felt pretty confident that I already knew my Enneagram profile anyway, from multiple people telling me that I was a 2: The Helper. The person who helps behind the scenes and serves others on her good days, and on her bad days, can be manipulative and guilt-trippy and seek approval from the wrong places.
So I was very surprised when my results yielded me a different answer. I tested as a 6. I was so surprised that I found another free test and took that one as well, thinking surely not! Surely those other people who know me and know the Enneagram so well didn't mistype me! Second test told me the same thing: a 6. The Loyalist. (Here is the link for the free tests if anyone is interested: Enneagram)
The Loyalist is a good troubleshooter, planner, and once she trusts you, is a to-the-death loyal friend. However, the undercurrent of the Loyalists entire life and psyche is a deep-rooted fear. Anxiety. Insecurity. To the point that lots of 6s don't even realize how much fear controls their lives and therefore mistype themselves as other things, often as 2s.
My feelings I had upon reading this were startling to me. I felt relief! It's not that it was a more positive personality type than a 2, or that it had more perks. (It's actually the same personality type as Hitler, in case I was needing to be knocked down a rung or two.) But when I had earlier read the description of the 2, I felt like it was a box. No, a cage. No, a stagnant dot on an otherwise empty graph. I would read it and feel trapped, like I had no where to go and no idea how to move anywhere. But when I read through the description of the 6 and listened to Richard Rohr talk about it on YouTube, it felt freeing. I think that is because I can look at the spectrum of 6s--from healthy to unhealthy--and I can see myself in that spectrum. I can see an arc of growth across time. I can see God working in me to not only uncover my fears and expose them, but to call me out away from them, closer to him.
And it is true: my skepticism of authority and a felt dire need to trust authority exists in my heart in all its conundrum. Fear has been the backdrop of my life and feelings and most of my internal turmoil for as long as I can remember. Other personality tests I have taken have shown my "core personality" (how I am in my innate being) and my "adapted personality" (how I adapt in social settings due to fear or stress or perceived expectations), and the disparity between the two was great. Fear has been my constant companion--whether it be fear of not measuring up, of not fitting in, of making a mistake. I am insecure sometimes to the point of paralysis or defensiveness. Anytime that I face criticism I tend to think that if my critic could hear the voice in my own head they would have saved their breath. I've usually already criticized and second-guessed and berated myself many times over before I hear it from someone else.
So it is not surprising that when Seth told me that he wanted to get me a tattoo for my birthday last week, that I decided I wanted the Hebrew word for refuge. Refuge. A safe place from the storm. A shelter for the needy person in her distress.
The Rock of Refuge, the place where I am hidden and protected and loved.
I know a guy that knows a guy that always says in regards to teaching the troubled teens he works with about Jesus: If they could see him, they would run to him.
If we could see him, we would run to him.
If I could see him, I would run to him.
And yet. All those things that get in my sight lines.
The main theme of Isaiah, one could say of the entirety of Scripture, is the idea that man seeks refuge in things other than God. We run to other things for our provision. That is the seed of sin.
I reach for comfort in things like the approval of others, personal achievement, productivity, food, distraction, and control. When I do this I run from the very place, the very person who can give me true refuge.
I want the word refuge on my arm to remind me of what I reach out to. What am I clinging to? Where am I running? What fears are in my way?
My fears-- deeply set, innate, and oftentimes pervasive-- Christ invites me to bid them go. To turn to him. And to rest in his refuge.
So I was very surprised when my results yielded me a different answer. I tested as a 6. I was so surprised that I found another free test and took that one as well, thinking surely not! Surely those other people who know me and know the Enneagram so well didn't mistype me! Second test told me the same thing: a 6. The Loyalist. (Here is the link for the free tests if anyone is interested: Enneagram)
The Loyalist is a good troubleshooter, planner, and once she trusts you, is a to-the-death loyal friend. However, the undercurrent of the Loyalists entire life and psyche is a deep-rooted fear. Anxiety. Insecurity. To the point that lots of 6s don't even realize how much fear controls their lives and therefore mistype themselves as other things, often as 2s.
My feelings I had upon reading this were startling to me. I felt relief! It's not that it was a more positive personality type than a 2, or that it had more perks. (It's actually the same personality type as Hitler, in case I was needing to be knocked down a rung or two.) But when I had earlier read the description of the 2, I felt like it was a box. No, a cage. No, a stagnant dot on an otherwise empty graph. I would read it and feel trapped, like I had no where to go and no idea how to move anywhere. But when I read through the description of the 6 and listened to Richard Rohr talk about it on YouTube, it felt freeing. I think that is because I can look at the spectrum of 6s--from healthy to unhealthy--and I can see myself in that spectrum. I can see an arc of growth across time. I can see God working in me to not only uncover my fears and expose them, but to call me out away from them, closer to him.
And it is true: my skepticism of authority and a felt dire need to trust authority exists in my heart in all its conundrum. Fear has been the backdrop of my life and feelings and most of my internal turmoil for as long as I can remember. Other personality tests I have taken have shown my "core personality" (how I am in my innate being) and my "adapted personality" (how I adapt in social settings due to fear or stress or perceived expectations), and the disparity between the two was great. Fear has been my constant companion--whether it be fear of not measuring up, of not fitting in, of making a mistake. I am insecure sometimes to the point of paralysis or defensiveness. Anytime that I face criticism I tend to think that if my critic could hear the voice in my own head they would have saved their breath. I've usually already criticized and second-guessed and berated myself many times over before I hear it from someone else.
So it is not surprising that when Seth told me that he wanted to get me a tattoo for my birthday last week, that I decided I wanted the Hebrew word for refuge. Refuge. A safe place from the storm. A shelter for the needy person in her distress.
The Rock of Refuge, the place where I am hidden and protected and loved.
I know a guy that knows a guy that always says in regards to teaching the troubled teens he works with about Jesus: If they could see him, they would run to him.
If we could see him, we would run to him.
If I could see him, I would run to him.
And yet. All those things that get in my sight lines.
The main theme of Isaiah, one could say of the entirety of Scripture, is the idea that man seeks refuge in things other than God. We run to other things for our provision. That is the seed of sin.
I reach for comfort in things like the approval of others, personal achievement, productivity, food, distraction, and control. When I do this I run from the very place, the very person who can give me true refuge.
I want the word refuge on my arm to remind me of what I reach out to. What am I clinging to? Where am I running? What fears are in my way?
My fears-- deeply set, innate, and oftentimes pervasive-- Christ invites me to bid them go. To turn to him. And to rest in his refuge.
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