To become a steady "i."

James 1:14 "And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

Those who have spent anytime of substantial time with me know I have a fascination with personality types. I like to watch people and guess their personality-- even complete strangers, which could place me into the category of either "creepy" or just plain observant. The personality test I am most familiar with is the DISC test. The letters represent the 4 main personalities as follows:

Dominance

Influence

Steadiness

Conscientiousness 

"What's your personality?" you may be asking me. Well, let me tell you. I am an I (influence) D (dominance). This means I am generally loud and outgoing, I love to talk in large groups, I am direct and sometimes say things too bluntly, I like accomplishing tasks and being in charge. (As you can see, there are some areas here that could very easily get me into trouble...especially the talking all the time and being in charge/control part...)

Perhaps the biggest woe of my personality type is that I am incredibly emotional (This would be the "I" in me). My heart gets thrown into everything. I jump into things with both feet--often too quickly. Combine this with my love for talking and you will see me in the midst of some pretty heated discussions fairly regularly. I tend to feel first and think later. I wouldn't be quick to call myself a steady individual.

I ended my August with two weeks at my church summer camp. The last week was a week for students just entering and just graduating from high school. I had never staffed at this particular week before, but I had heard rumors of it's tendency to be incredibly impacting and powerful. Going in, I was expecting huge emotional and spiritual highs for the campers-- even myself. However, I believe God has a revealed a new truth to me this summer, because camp took me by surprise. I didn't experience the incredible "high" of experiencing him in a chapel where everyone is weeping and on their knees in repentance. Neither did I feel that I learned something completely new about his character-- and yet, the whole week I felt a peace and steadiness that I had not felt in a long time. While I could be frustrated and say that I didn't meet God or learn from Him because I didn't get an emotional "high," that would be false, because I think God was showing me something else:

Spiritual maturity reveals itself in steadfastness.

The definition of steadfast:

steadfast, stedfast [ˈstɛdfəst -ˌfɑːst]adj

1. (esp of a person's gaze) fixed in intensity or direction; steady

2. unwavering or determined in purpose, loyalty, etc

Steadiness is probably one of the character traits that I most admire in people I know.I desire strongly to grow in it myself. While their intensity and focus is fixed, mine tends to change quite rapidly and without notice.

Now, there is something to be said for personalities and our differences within that. They are actually good! I am learning that my personality is exactly what God intended it to be (though we all need to learn maturity within our character traits). God wants passionate and zealous individuals just as much as he wants steady and level-headed people to balance them out. However, what I am beginning to learn here is that my spiritual walk should not necessarily mirror the same thing.

James 1:4 calls us to steadfastness. It's this steadiness that brings us to maturity "not lacking anything..." I want my gaze to be continually fixed upon Jesus. I want my goal to be to constantly build his kingdom. I don't want to go from spiritual high point to high point, but from new small truth to new small truth. I want the graph of my spiritual growth to be a steady climb...not something resembling an electrocardiogram. To be steady I am realizing that my heart and gaze must be set on one thing and one thing only: Jesus Christ-- not my feelings. My loyalty must be to my Savior-- not whether I cried in worship or confession. I cannot base my spiritual health or God's nearness on my emotions of the moment. Instead I must never stop pursuing Jesus. I must steadfastly choose to seek him out in every season--especially the ones where I feel nothing. 

Hello, my name is Jenn and I am often over-emotional. Thank Jesus my heart can become steady in him.