Your Personality Is Not Your Excuse

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. (1 Cor. 12:14-18 ESV)

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m a __ on the Enneagram, so I just can’t help myself.”

This comment, posted in a thread on Facebook and intended to justify the words preceding it, gave me pause.

There it was again, the personality-type-as-justification. We’ve been here before, I thought, mentally aping an exchange between Luke Danes and Lorelai Gilmore of Gilmore Girls fame, I recognize that tree.

Personality inventories can be helpful, and they tend to have runs of popularity. In the early 2000s, it seemed everyone I knew would tell you their Myers-Briggs personality type on first meeting. In the late 2000s, every Christian I knew was big on Strengthsfinder. There are the Four Temperaments, the DISC assessment. These days, it’s the Enneagram that’s on everyone’s lips. Knowing your personality’s strengths and weaknesses can certainly be useful. It can help you choose a career, understand how you relate to your family and friends, identify your love languages.

But what happens when we get a little too comfortable with, a little too accepting of, our weaknesses? What happens when we refuse to be stretched, allowing our weaknesses–in essence, allowing our sinful natures–to drive our behavior, our words, our choices?

You just can’t help yourself? I wondered silently at my internet commenter, Or you have found an excuse not to help yourself?

To read the rest, friends, join me over at The Glorious Table.