Episode #132 Practical Habits for Knowing God Based On Your Personality – Life With God

­­­Hey friends, we are wrapping up our series today on bringing our whole selves to God and of course, the series wouldn't be complete if we didn't stop to take a look at our habits. So if you haven't taken that quiz yet on how you connect with God best based on your personality, that link is still here in the show notes.

Take the Quiz: How Do You Connect with God Best?

We're looking at this from the lens of heart, head, and hands. And once you have this insight about your personality and how you tend to relationally connect, sense, and respond to God, we then want to look at how we can build routines and habits that help us continually connect with God in this way.

Because you're listening to this podcast, because you're taking the quiz, and you're curious about whether you connect with God best via your head, your heart, or your hands, the chances are really good that you already have habits built into your life rhythms to help you connect with God.

These habits probably include things like going to church or being in a small group, reading your Bible, praying about your needs, and bringing the needs of other people to God.

All of these are really good habits. Spiritual disciplines help us cultivate a life that is attuned to God, and nowhere in our exploration of our personalities are we replacing any of the disciplines that we've cultivated that help us connect with God or that grow us in our awareness of him.

But the opportunity that is before each of us is to be mindful of the ways that God made us to connect with him. We can build habits that use that aspect of our personality as a strength instead of as an obstacle to overcome.

So for example, it is good for every single person to read the Bible. It is God's written Word. It's one of the best ways that God communicates with us still today. It is good to draw near to God as we read the Bible. However, sometimes we can build a habit of approaching the word in a way that is less productive.

As a head type connector, I can approach the Bible for information, not connection. I can feel really invigorated by the things I'm learning and facts I find, or definitions based on the source language that was originally used. But I need habits that help me continue past that point of knowledge and information to actually building connection.

In a similar way for those who are heart connectors, it can be easy to feel like the response you have to the Bible needs to be only intellectual.

And so if you haven't yet learned how to connect with the heart of God on display in scripture, it may feel to you like your times of reading the Bible are dry or boring. Or simply are knowledge about God because you don't know how to actually turn your heart to connect with Him and to sense Him based on how His story is on display in Scripture.

Or if you're a hands type connector, it can be easy to read a verse simply for the practical application. You might even be really drawn to spiritual disciplines because you're looking for ways to partner on mission for God. But you can miss opportunities to marvel at how he is on display. To sit back and rest into him as you read scripture, because your habit is so focused on receiving instruction that you can then go do.

I don't want to tell you what this looks like for you, because even for those who are in the same personality category, this can look really different based on the season that you're in with the Lord.

In 1 Corinthians 9:24, it says,

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.” (1 Corinthians 9:24-26)

And then ending in verse 27,

“But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” (1 Corinthians 9:27)

So what this is talking about here is disciplines and the training that we can undergo and relating it to the training that an athlete endures as they're preparing for a race.

And that we want to apply ourselves in such a way as to win the prize. This passage always reminds me of another passage of scripture that's in Philippians 3. And that talks about how we can press forward to win the prize for which we have been called heavenward in Christ Jesus. Paul says that he forgets all that is behind, and he strains toward what is ahead, that he wants to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.

We're talking about the prize of knowing Christ. We get to apply disciplines, to take action upon our faith, and we get to build our relationship with God through our habits. But we don't have to be those that train aimlessly. We don't have to neglect the unique strengths and abilities that we already have and ignore those so that we can train like somebody else who's running near us.

In light of the fact that you connect best with your head, or your heart, or your hands, how can that impact your habits?
We get to apply ourselves and use our strengths in our training.

Maybe God wants to show you ways that your existing habits can be more life-giving and fuel your connection with Him in a greater way. Maybe he wants to encourage you about certain habits that are serving you really well, so that you can focus on those in this season. Hopefully for you, even listening to this podcast has become one of those helpful habits in growing your connection with God.

Sometimes habit changes can be as simple as taking the very next step beyond where you've gone before.
The God who created you made you this way on purpose.
And so more than any resource that I could share with you, He wants to give you guidance in this area. And so here's our question:

God, what do you want to show me about my habits? How can I use those habits to connect with you more?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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