PERSONALITY

I took the personality test for the "What's The Shape Of Your Faith?", and I'm supposedly a "Guardian" type, with many of the unique quirks of that profile. You mean I'm acting on pre-destined auto-pilot?! Not exactly though. Because despite the expected reactions of my personality-type, many of the wonderful truths of God's word have permeated my soul, causing a reinterpretation of my world.
The test profile indicated I may be somewhat pessimistic about the past and future, and stoic about the present. I said to myself, "What?!" And then I thought about, O.K., well, yeah, on occasion I do obsess about what disease I might have when I'm feeling a bit crummy physically. I suppose you could classify that as pessimistic! Even though I tell myself, "no, wait, I'm a really happy camper", there is at times that underlying thread of concern. I don't show it to the world, but it's there. But something big HAS changed in that fatalistic perception of "whoa, I might die..." One of my favorite Bible verses is Luke 10:20- "But don't rejoice just because evil spirits obey you; rejoice because your names are registered as citizens of heaven." THAT'S HUGE! Whenever any other thing gets blown out of proportion, Jesus commands us to remember where we are going. That changes my perspective about so many things. If ever I'm tending to think negatively about some worldly person, I find myself so much more compassionate when I remind myself that I know where I'm going when I die, and they don't. When I think, oh man, my body's a wreck, I remember, yeah, but I'm going to heaven. I'm just passing though on this earth. When I get caught up in a worldly thing that seems overwhelmingly exciting, I remind myself: It's still not as exciting as knowing I'm going to heaven. And that's good to remember at that point when it APPEARS that everything's going great, because if we put too much stock in that reality, it's guaranteed to change! Our identity can't be in our temporary "successes", because then what happens when the wind shifts?!
One of the questions posed in "Shape of Your Faith" is: "How has God smoothed your edges?" I think of how meditating on His word can change our natural tendencies, as with me in the above verse. It's good to think about these things, because we can easily forget how much work He indeed has done on us, and take it for granted. Until this morning, I'd almost forgotten how I really was pretty fatalistic about the future. I couldn't smoke pot with my other pot-head friends when I was a teen, because I'd start obsessing about how my cells were all dying as we speak. Man, I've come a long way! Thank you Lord!