Discontent

She is a wanderer in life, unsettled and unsatisfied everywhere she rests.

She never really rests. She pauses before throwing herself into the next moment.


She wants what she cannot have, but she still reaches.

She did not see that she was being loved.

No Regrets

Almost exactly one year ago, i posted about "5 things I've Never regretted." In this post, I list them and I expand how I understand what they mean below.

Loving God

Loving People

Dreaming BIG

Being Diligent

Being Patient

Loving God is essential. It means intentionally directing my affections by making lifestyle choices that diret my thoughts and actions towards things that give God pleasure. It means persistently realigning my passions so that I can pursue the thngs that are on my Father's heart.

Loving People is one of the ways that a genuine love for God is expressed. It means remembering to love others to the same extent that I love myself and treating people as well as I'd like to be treated. It also means holding others in higher regard than I hold myself.

Dreaming BIG is about being hopeful. It's about me continuing to believe that no matter how great I imagine something can be, God's going to top my wildest imagination. It's about meeting disappointment with an even bigger dream.

Being Diligent means translating passion and imagination into consistent effort. Love without action is just emothion. Dreams without implementation are merely fantasies. Diligence turns possibilities into performance and aspirations into achievement.

Being Patient is about knowing that anything I want to happen will probably take awhile. It's about learning to want only things that are worth waiting for.

When I think about decisions that I've made and the way I made them, I'm not always proud. Today, some of them make me wince with pain as I have come to understand how others were affected by my choices. However, I don't regret any decisions that I made loving God, loving people, dreaming big, being diligent, and being patient.

Freedom?

To protect your freedom, we will read your email.
To protect your freedom, we will listen to your phone calls.
To protect your freedom, we will watch your every move.

To promote freedom, we will hold secret trials.
To promote freedom, we will torture.
To promote freedom, we will imprison as many people as necessary.


To protect and promote freedom, we will remain unaccountable.

Cautionary note on Strengths Finder themes of talent

It has come to my attention that there is a tendency to use the results of the strengths finder evaluation in ways that are unnecessarily limiting. I don't believe that your themes should be seen as disqualifying you for things, nor should it be used as a way to cop out of certain responsibilities.

I'll give you an example using my own themes which are Input, Intellection, Responsibility, Context, and Connectedness. you will notice that none of these themes are obviously relational. I don't have Woo, Relator, Includer, Empathy, or some other theme that might mark me as someone who is good at relationships. However, I am pretty good at building and maintaining relationships. How I build and maintain relationships is affected by my themes in the following way.

{Input} I listen to people. I love talking to someone one-on-one and asking them quesitons about their life. I try to figure out someone's personality by observing their reactions in different situations or listening to certain phrases that they repeat like "It's the right thing to do." or "I had a hunch she felt that way."

It's even better if I can get them to take a personal evaluation test like Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, Love Language Test, Gifts Test, or Strengths Finder. If so, then I'll research everything i can find out about them based on their evaluation results.

{Input, Context} I like to find out about where people are from. I love to learn historical information about someone such as how someone came to Christ, how they met their spouse, or how they landed a certain job.

{Intellection} I turn over in my mind all of the things that I've learned about someone by listening, observing, and researching their themes or personality type. I look at things from different angles. I reinterpret situations that I've observed this person in and notice how personality influenced response.

{Intellection,Connectedness}I make connections between different thengs that they have revealed about themselves. How does being raised up in a country church relate to their Belief Theme? Does their spiritual gift of mercy have a parallel in their preferred love language? Is their personality fit their profession? On and on I go.

{Intellection} I try to understand how the person fits in the larger group. I also imagine how this person would fit in other groups and environments.

{Responsibility} Then, I think of ways to use this understanding of a person to tailor my style of communication. I try to encourage them based on who I understand them to be. If I can, I recommend experiences that I thing that they would enjoy and connect them with other people who may be able to help them pursue their goals or fulfill their desires. I'm often asked for advice because people feel like I 'get them' and can help them get a better perspective on situations. I relate Scripture, using my own teaching gift, to them in ways that make God's Word relevant to someone based on what I understand about them and about their situation.

The point is that I am not people-focused because of my themes, but because God commands me to love people. I use my themes to serve people in my own way. Don't let your themes define your mission. Let your themes serve your mission.

INVENTORY OF CONVICTIONS THAT GOD HAS BUILT INTO MY LIFE

Singleness is a gift to be honored, appreciated, capitalized upon. Jesus had it his entire life. Paul, the apostle had it and thought so much of it that he wished everyone had it. It offers unique advantages over being married that unmarried people have a responsibility to utilize to their greatest effect.

Every authority is appointed by God. God uses authorities to protect and provide for me. God requires me to obey and honor every authority in my life, familial, governmental, ecclesiastical, spiritual, and otherwise. I am currently learning that this may also include cultural.

Building and maintaining relationships characterized by love is always the main goal in any endeavor. While it is easier to achieve when all parties concerned share this same goal, my aim to achieve it does not change even if I am the only one in the relationship working towards that goal.

God is my Father more than He is my Master. My Father is good. My Father loves me. He can be trusted.

5 Things I've never regretted

Loving God
Loving People
Dreaming BIG
Being Diligent
Being Patient

Investigator

Thanks Penny! This resembles me reasonbly well.

THE INVESTIGATOR:
Intense, Cerebral: Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated
In Search of: Mastery, to be capable, competent,

GIFTS: Exquisite sensitivity, and compassionate visionary.
One step beyond the cutting edge.

Sees Purpose in Life as: to know and understand the universe.

Gifts in Practice:
Deep burning laser-like concentration.
Pioneering visionary.
Perspective observer & curious.
Focused innovator - attracted to the exception to the rule.
Generous and discriminating to those who are interested.
Perceptive

Often Seen as:
Intense, cerebral type: focused, original, withdrawn, seen as shy,
eccentric, 'nerds,' 'weirdoes,' intensely pre-occupied.
Experts in specific ('unique' and specialized) areas into which they go deep.
Quirky off-beat sense of humour; very sensitive.
Unperturbed by 'fashion,' collecting.
Studious -in search of mastery.
Intense conceptualizer. Plays the 'what if' game.
Often walk - without the whole foot touching.

Wake-Up Call: moving inside mental world, away from reality

Wrong Turn: to be observant & bring capacity & agency using the mind.

Compulsive Style: Pre-occupied: pre-occupied often with the dark aspects; scornful, cynical, impatient with others. Isolated, secretive.

Emotional Habit Pattern that maintains the Compulsive Style:
Avarice, stinginess; holding out and holding onto.

Fear: being useless, helpless, incapable;
can't make it in the world, being overwhelmed.

Avoids: emptiness

Defense Mechanism:
Compartmentalization: separates thoughts from emotions.
Isolation: separates one moment /event /... from another.

CHALLENGE: to show up in an embodied way: can't know the world from mind alone / through thinking (leads to spaciousness & trust).

E.g.s.: Albert Einstein, F. Nietzche, Stephen Hawking, John Lennon, Vincent Van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, Jodie Foster, Wilhelm Reich, Stephen King, Bill Gates, Emily Dickenson, Georgia O'Keefe, Jean-Paul Sarte, James Joyce, lsaac Newton, Doris Lessing, Bobby Fischer, Glenn Gould, Isaac Asimov, Clive Barker, P.E. Trudeau, Lois Riel, "Ricky" in American Beauty, John Nash (in A Beautiful Mind), August Strindberg.

His Name

I want to walk humbly before God content to bear His Name.

I'm not strong enough to create a lasting name for myself.

There exists no institution, organizaiton, family, nation, or race whose name is worth devoting myself to.

His Name is honorable and everything sacrificed for the sake of His Name is worthwhile. His Name is worthy of unreasonable extravagant expense.

Derived Significance

His death gives me life
His life gives me hope
His love gives me meaning
His will gives me purpose