“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantine and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”― Sylvia Plath

Last September I had a pretty big decision to make about where I was going to accept a job. I called up the people who knew me best to get their insight, asked my father of confession for his wisdom and spoke to people working in the same field for their perspective.

Whether it’s deciding over relationships, colleges, schools or jobs, sometimes we might find ourselves with two seemingly great choices, and so we find ourselves in a dilemma. Each choice will come at a cost; each choice will have positives and negatives, and ultimately no choice will be perfect.

I’ve never been a fan of pros and cons lists – I find that life can’t be categorised that easily. However, a friend gave me advice that helped. I was told to assign a value to each point under my two options. When I started writing the values I held, I started to see that while both choices were in line with the vision I had for my life, there were some values that were more significant than others. And while one option had way more values than the other, the other which only had a couple were much more fundamental to me.

A few of the things I’ve learned this season…

“We don’t know what to do but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). In the midst of his crisis, King Jehoshaphat acted by praising God. We also in the midst of our confusion and turmoil over decisions, need to learn the art laying our anxieties and restless thoughts down, being still and opening our heart in worship. The voice of the Holy Spirit can be so gentle that it’s only when we spend time in his presence that we can discern His Voice from all the noise.

Pray and learn from whatever happens on the other side. No matter what you choose, there will be struggle, and there will be trials for we know “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Sometimes those are a result of our choices, but in the end, they will be used by God to sanctify us and purify us. Living with our eyes on eternity is important in those seasons to understand that nothing is outside of His never-ending and unfailing love and mercy. There is no such thing as Plan B or Z with Christ. He will use all for our deification; it might take us longer on certain paths but even then, all we need to do is repent, and we are restored.

There’s a principle in radiology that says even if you find the fracture on an x-ray you should keep looking for other signs because you don’t want to be blindsided. Bring your decision before the Lord in prayer and meditation but challenge yourself to be curious and look deeper into your intentions, motivations and reasons for each choice. Give yourself time, patience and space and trust that the Holy Spirit will examine you, try you and reveal what is in depths of your heart.

Sometimes God’s will is clear and other times, most times, God allows us the freedom to choose and become whoever we want, though He may certainly have a direction for you. Submission is hard as we deny our self that we may be dedicated to Another. The hardest part in all of this is asking God “Who do you want me to be?” I think of Mary, called to be Mother of God; Abraham called to be Father of Nations and the disciples called to be Fishers of Men. God revealed to them who they were in His eyes and with that promise He gave them the strength and grace to become. Sometimes we don’t know how to choose because we don’t know who God is asking us to be. That may not be a question that gets answered overnight, it needs silence and self-awareness and time alone with Him. Sometimes it’s a process – it takes making one choice faithfully, and waiting faithfully and then making another and waiting to see what is revealed. But it’s a question we all desperately need the answer to – more than what we do God wants us to know who we are. It is only in knowing that, can we then make the decisions about what we do, how we spend our time, money and emotions. Because where we invest our heart, there we invest our life.

What if there is no such thing as the perfect choice? Because choosing means we can’t have everything. Because we don’t know how things will change and how those things that change will change us. Because we don’t know who we will be or what we will need in the future? Because we can sit here and play “what if the the grass is greener over there?” all day and it won’t bring us any closer to an answer – only further from being satisfied. And what if none of that matters because the point is to grow and seek His kingdom regardless of our choices?

So trust yourself. Most of our choices are not made in isolation. Where we are now and the choices we are making today is a culmination of all the choices and experiences in the past that have led up to this point. Trust that the God who has knit you from birth, has been guiding you and shaping you like clay can lead you today in this choice. Sometimes it’s fear of not having the perfect picture of our future figured out that holds us back.

A year later I’m fighting to find peace in the unknown road I’m on, but I want to continue to fight and continue to hope in Him because when I put the pieces in front of me, they don’t fit. Before me lays the back of a colourful tapestry and I have little idea what the canvas is going to look like. There are some dark threads from the past and some strange shapes from the present. But if I let Him just take all the colours, threads and pieces, I don’t have to sit and stare at them. The root of every untrusting feeling is the fear that He is not in fact good and that His love will end, especially when I feel I have no clue or answers about what to do. But if I forfeit my desire to know every outcome, if I forfeit the need to have physical evidence or feeling as evidence, then I will trust in His Word that He is with me, and that He is weaving stars and gold from what looks like odd patterns to me. And doesn’t that make all the difference?

C.S. Lewis — ‘I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?’

One choice we can always make, even in the midst of painful uncertainty, the simplest place to start is with this: “Love the Lord your God … and love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater…”  You will always be where you need to be as long as Love is your aim.

It is then, as appears, the greatest of all lessons to know one’s self. For if one knows himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like God

-St. Clement of Alexandria

It is of immense value to know yourself:

If you know your strengths you can focus on those areas and achieve extraordinary things.

In a similar way, if you know your weaknesses you can find ways to compensate for those areas like partnering with different people possessing the strengths that you lack.

This is all relatively straightforward, but the question then becomes how does one truly come to know oneself?

Drum roll please…

The answer isn’t as earth shattering as you might expect.

You come to know yourself in the same way you learn about anything else – through investigation and focused study.

There are several personality tests that you may or may not have heard of that I have found to be incredibly valuable in the study of yourself. Below I describe a few of them, give some starting points, and provide some resources so that you can begin your research!

Myers-Brigg Personality Test

Many of you are already aware of the Myers-Brigg Personality Types as they are referenced the most. The theory boils down to the following:

There are four possible pairs of personality traits:

-Introversion (I) or Extraversion (E)
-Intuition (N) or Sensing (S)
-Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
-Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)

Every person leans, to a slight or extreme degree, to one side in each pair; this results in 16 possible personality profiles. A lot of people are surprised at how accurately their profile describes them as this test has helped many to see why they think and behave in certain ways. This personality test is so widely used that some people use it to find careers that they would be a good fit for or even life long partners that they are compatible with.

Take the test for free here! Once you know what you are you can just type those four letters into google and learn a variety of things about yourself.

(I’m an INFP)

There are also entire webpages dedicated to explaining the different Myers-Brigg personality types. The following videos are some of the best I’ve found as they take an in-depth look at each type. It’s definitely worth the 10 minutes it’ll take to watch the video focusing on your personal type:

There are also forums where people with the same personality type go, ask each other questions and support one another. If you go to https://www.reddit.com/r/xxxx (type in the four letters that represent your personality type in place of the xxxx) you can see one such online community for yourself. You can learn what motivates, scares, exhausts, or makes each personality type feel better. You can even see how to grow rapidly based on your type. When it comes to the Myers-Brigg personality types, resources are pretty endless.

The DiSC Assessment

The DiSC assessment is another test designed to predict how people are likely to act; it is another tool you can use to learn more about yourself. The basic premise is that there are four behavioral groups people fall into: Dominant, Influential, Steady, and Compliant.

Most people can be described using one or a mixture of two of the categories. You can take the test for free here!

Also, below you can download a really good infographic taken from Eastern Nazarene College that goes into a lot of detail about the different behavior groups. (Be sure to zoom in to see it properly!)

StrengthsFinder Test

There are several other less well-known tests out there that will give you a deeper understanding of what you’re naturally good at, your unique disposition, and why you think and act the way you do… you just have to look for them. After I bought, Living Your Strengths: Discover Your God-Given Talents and Inspire Your Community, I received an access code to take a StrengthFinders Test. Out of the 34 themes, it reported my top 5 (with my strongest at the top of the list):

1. Input (I have a craving to know more; like to collect and archive all kinds of information)
2. Intellection (I am introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions)
3. Focus (I can take directions, follow through, and make the corrections necessary to stay on track)
4. Learner (I am constantly growing as I I feed my desire to learn all that I can)
5. Restorative (I adept at dealing with problems and good at fixing things that go wrong)

This taught me a lot about myself and revealed to me why I behave in certain ways. The book goes into a lot more detail about the 34 themes. Unfortunately, the test is not free as you either have to buy the book (and receive an access code to take the test) or buy the test on it’s own here. If you don’t want to pay for the test it’s worth looking through the list of themes to see what you think are your top strengths. You might know yourself better than you think.

Not only can we use these tools to learn more about ourselves, but we can use them to understand and appreciate the differences between us and the people in our lives. As we come to understand that there is no ‘right way’ and just different ways of communicating and approaching things we come to value others for the unique perspectives, insights, and abilities they bring to the table. This allows us to grow to see our lives in the context of the people and community we belong to.

So let’s start learning about ourselves!

After looking through these materials, what have you learned about yourself from your research? Let us know below!

(Photo by Alex Zhu)