Jesus: Savior, Healer, INFJ?

Those Myers-Brigg Personality tests are always fun. Whenever I take one, I come up as an INFJ (Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging). Apparently, this is the rarest personality type (only 1% of the population). It's kind of fun to look up your personality type and see if it really fits. According to Wikipedia (such a scholarly source, I know), the INFJ is a romantic, a peacemaker and a reformer. They are independent yet interested in the well-being of others, care more about intimate relationships than having numerous surface-level friendships and establish those close relationships slowly. They have strong intuitive senses, are often creative and have a stick-to-it attitude towards their idealized goals. They focus more on fantasy than reality. INFJs also tend to be sarcastic towards others, have unrealistic expectations of those around them, and are wishy-washy in decision making (hmm). Most INFJs find their niche in writing, counseling, or teaching. Interesting.

As fun as all of that is to think about, I was sort of pondering these tests in a new light yesterday. I was thinking back on taking a Myers-Brigg test with some friends late last spring. We were scrolling through our results and I looked at the list of notable INFJ's. There was Chaucer, Billy Crystal, Martin Luther King, Nicole Kidman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and . . . Jesus?! I remember getting really excited and telling my friends that this proved, in fact, that I was pretty awesome. My friend Taylor was quick to remind me, however, that this was just a website and that between raising the dead, walking on water and saving me, Jesus probably didn't have time to take a Myers-Brigg personality test.

While the whole thing was pretty funny and has become a running joke about the validity of my Christ-like personality, I've been thinking lately about the bigger implications of this fascination with these silly tests. We're always trying to discover ourselves, but where are we looking?

We (and by that I mean ME and probably you and definitely the majority of Americans and maybe most other members of the world) are obsessed with ourselves. We are head over heels, can't get enough, pridefully in love with our own egos. Every inch of this world tells us that the key to happiness is looking at ourselves and knowing ourselves and loving ourselves. Walk into any bookstore - you'll see rows upon rows of feel-good self help books, all promising to stoke this affair with our own wonderfulness, promising to unlock our inner success story, sex goddess, confident business person, exercise guru, relationship master, perfect parent, etc. etc. Go online. In two seconds after taking a ridiculous personality test, you can discover anything about yourself from which Pokemon you would be to what country you should live in. I'm not saying that I don't have fun with this stuff - I do. But deeper down, I love it because I love me. I love when people talk about me. I love hearing good things about myself. I love letting other people tell me who I am (if it's flattering). I love it, and you love it, too. And something is off about that.

This whole Jesus as an INFJ thing makes me wonder if I'm trying to get to know the wrong person. I spend so much energy investing in my own self-discovery, thinking about who I want to be and what career I want to have and how others see me. Today is Christmas Eve, when we are supposed to be celebrating the one who was born for ME and YOU and EVERYONE, and yet, I sit daily celebrating myself. I'm so often concerned with knowing me, but do I know HIM?

My prayer throughout this holiday is that I would remember how precious and wonderful my Savior is. I want to hunger for a better picture of Him. I want only to love myself in terms of loving what HE is in me. I want to stop putting myself in the spotlight, stop fruitlessly seeking for who I am, and let the one who made me have that job. I don't think that self-discovery is a bad thing. But I think that what we often discover is a false-self. In other words, not the self we were created to be.

I hope this post doesn't come across as preachy or sharp, because it is mainly preaching at myself. But I just wish that for once I could rid myself of this human condition of pride and self-obsession. It is so easy to buy into because it is everywhere. All over the media and the stores and my friends and yours friends and our hearts. And it shouldn't be there.

I love the way Lewis closes Mere Christianity. I'll post the quotation in closing because I think it's really wonderful. Here's to hoping that your Christmas is blessed and incredible and full of beautiful, remarkable glances as Jesus - savior, healer, and maybe INFJ.

"I said there were Personalities in God. I will go further now. There are no real personalities anywhere else. Until you have given yourself to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most "natural" men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.

But there must be real giving up of the self. You must throw it away "blindly" so to speak...As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about, you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether.

The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. . . [It's a] death of your ambitions and favorite wishes everyday...Keep back nothing...Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."