Introverts and Extroverts.

I basically know nothing about Susan Cain, but I love her.

Her book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking," now holds a place in my top 5 favorite non-fiction books of all time. 

Several chapters in "Quiet" are devoted to introducing (and then debunking) the myth in our society of an "extrovert ideal" - that in order to be well-liked, successful, or a leader, you must be an extrovert. She defines this ideal as: "the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha and comfortable in the spotlight...Introversion, along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness and shyness- is now a second-class personality trait.

Cain introduces an incredible amount of psychological and medical research in many of her chapters, especially those on the idea of personality and temperament. She closes, appropriately so, with a few chapters about living as an introvert in an extrovert world (and succeeding at it).

At the end of the day, I won't remember the intriguing stories, insightful comments or surprising statistics about anything Cain discusses in her book. But weeks after finishing the book I think about it daily, because it has greatly encouraged me to just be myself. It's given me insight into who I am, and helped me see that I need to be honest with myself about how God has made me. I have to live out who I am, regardless of what the world may think or expect of me. Dare I say, neither introvert nor extrovert is the true ideal - God made them both, made people to be one or the other or a mix of both. And that's good.

If you're an introvert, or dating/married to one, or you have one in your immediate family, or if you don't understand them, (...or even if you think you do)... I suggest checking out "Quiet."

When People Are Big and God is Small

Every time I hear someone talk about John 4, the story of the woman at the well, I chuckle. There was a week in my life a few years back when God was really trying to get my attention through the story of the woman at the well. It just kept coming up in a variety of ways, (my pal JB can attest to this), and it was hard to ignore.

If I were to look back over the last year of ministry, I can see a couple prevalent themes that stick out like a sore thumb (thumbs, I guess). Especially as of late, one of these themes is strong - And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:1-2ish).

I have a natural tendency is to think about the ways I can be improving myself, and growing emotionally, mentally, spiritually, etc. It's a good thing, and something we should strive for as believers who want to continue to grow to be like Christ. But, there's something to be said about taking our eyes off ourselves and setting them on Jesus. When my eyes are constantly fixed on my flaws instead of the One who is the perfecter of my faith, my relationship with God becomes all about me.

This very topic is continually set before me this semester. My staff team is reading a book called "When People Are Big and God Is Small." I highly recommend it, even if you don't wrestle with people being bigger than God in your life. The author of this book points out that we can tend to make people bigger than they ought to be in our lives - for example, by fearing what they think of us, instead of what God thinks of us.

This has been an incredibly eye-opening book for me to read. It's my natural tendency when reading this book to make a list of all the ways I make people bigger than God in my life. But the author points out many times throughout the book that the way to alleviate this is to grow our view of God, and that will in turn diminish our inappropriately big view of people.

I love analogies, so let me explain with one relating this back to the woman at the well. My tendency when I hear that story is to make a list of my wells - all the places I go to satisfy my thirst that I shouldn't. There's the well of performance, knowledge, approval from others, etc. The point is not to focus on getting rid of these wells - the point is to continually draw from the well that offers living water. I will probably always be tempted by these other wells, but when I'm focused on the water Jesus offers, I will naturally continue to go to him instead of the other wells.

Hopefully that makes some sense! Seriously, check out that book if it sounds even a little appealing to you at all. You won't regret it!