Personalities....

Do you know about personality tests? There is one out there that is pretty common. It is used in the business world, but has been adapted to ministry. This one uses the DISC method. D - driven, doer; I - influential, talkative; S - shy, stable, social in safe environments; C - controlled, organized, thinks with facts and not emotions. You can be any combination of these. D & C personalities are usually task-oriented. I & S are usually people-oriented.

When my husband & I were newlyweds, and he was in Bible school, we took the personality test. Shockingly (said sarcastically), we were opposite personalities. He was a high D, low I. I was a high I, low S, low C. I talked his ear off at night when he wanted to sleep. He would complete a task spontaneously without fully thinking of the consequences.

About 5 years later, we took the test again. By this time I had 2 children and I stayed at home a lot. My husband was a youth pastor. We had both matured (somewhat) and, to my surprise, our personalities had changed. HUH??? Yeah. They had. My husband was a high D and a high I. My I personality had pretty much disappeared and I was a high S and a medium C. So we refer to each other as a D-I and a S-C.

Yet again, when we returned to the States last year, my husband started giving personality tests to the staff. This probably should have been said before, but if you know someone's personality it helps to understand how they process information, how they will or will not perform a task, who can perform the tasks in a timely manner and who has the best people skills. We were both pretty much at the same as we were before.

All of that to say, I am not a driven personality. I am a people-oriented person. I only become task-oriented when backed against a wall, in an emergency situation, or if nobody else is rising up to the occasion. It's not that often.

There are many things that I would like to do in life. Still in this battle to lose weight. I want to live by a regimented schedule. I would like to be more organized. I would like to keep the house and laundry a little bit more maintained. Not like "Sleeping with the Enemy", but somewhere in between.

It's when I look at these TASKS that I want to get completed that makes me wish that I was a more task-oriented person. God created me to be who I am. When my personality shifted before, I still remained in the people-oriented category. Is it possible to change to complete DNA of who I am? Why did God make me to have so little task-orientation? How do I complete these tasks when I'm not task-oriented? In the battle of weight-loss, I even tried to find an accountability partner that would challenge me. She ended up being busy with so many of her own tasks that it didn't work out.

To be the perfect combination of the personalities and orientation would mean to be Jesus. Ultimately, that's what I'm working towards in life...to be more like Christ. But how is this going to help me??? Ugh...the struggle.