I still remember the first time I was introduced to the idea of a personality framework. Our family was lingering over a post-church lunch at our favorite all-you-can-eat buffet, and the conversation had turned from my excitement about the upcoming 4th-grade summer camp to the interesting test my parents had taken in their Sunday school class that morning. We smiled at the idea that Dad was a Golden Retriever like our beloved dog, Sasha, and laughed at thinking of Mom as a Beaver. It didn’t take too much puzzling to work out that I was a Beaver like my mom, and my brother Austin was an Otter. Over the next several weeks, the test continued to be a topic of family conversation, and we had fun working out the animal alter-egos of various family members and friends.
I’ve been introduced to countless other personality frameworks in the thirty years since that Beaver diagnosis, and I haven’t met a single one that I didn’t like. From Strengths Finder to Enneagram, Four Tendencies to Big Five, Love Languages to DISC—I find them all fascinating, and have enjoyed learning about myself (and others) through each one. A longstanding favorite, and one that I find particularly helpful, is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
The MBTI framework identifies sixteen different types, each consisting of four different letters indicating your preference in the following areas: Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I), Sensing (S) or Intuition (N), Thinking (T) or Feeling (F), and Judging (J) or Perceiving (P). I’ve taken various versions of the test and read enough books on the framework to accurately type myself as an INFJ. But something that’s not easily discernible in that simple four-letter identifier is the regular push and pull I experience in one of those areas: Thinker vs Feeler. In her book Reading People, Anne Bogel has this to say about the differences between these two preferences:
Thinkers are analytical, logical, and consistent; they rely on their reason as they search for fundamental truths and underlying principles. Because they are task-oriented and impartial, they are easily perceived as uncaring. Feelers . . . make decisions with their hearts and are often perceived as warm, caring, and compassionate. They are tactful and likely to consider others’ points of view, and they strive to maintain harmony with their decisions.
In my younger years, I was unquestionably a Feeler. I had big emotions that manifested themselves in big actions (and—unfortunately for my poor parents—overreactions). For better and for worse, my feelings were driving my childhood and adolescent bus. But as I got older and experienced some of the negative repercussions of leading with my feelings, I stopped letting my feelings call the shots. I grew distrustful of my emotions and instead leaned into the logical, analytical side of myself that had previously taken a back seat to my sentimentality. Where feelings were scary and erratic, logic was rational and predictable, and it became easier to lead with the Thinker part of me in my day-to-day decision making.
Through maturity and years of therapy, I have made peace with both the Feeling AND the Thinking parts of myself and have come to see that both have their place. Nobody is all Thinker or all Feeler (never mind what our Myers-Briggs types may say), and I am healthiest when allowing feelings and logic to work TOGETHER. While I’ve made a great deal of progress in trusting both parts of myself when navigating experiences and decisions, I still struggle to find peace between emotion and reason when it comes to my faith.
As a child and teen, my faith was largely driven by my emotions. I felt that God was real, and I experienced Him through my senses. I saw God in nature and in my own interpretation of experiences, and singing to God with my hands lifted high was my purest form of worship. Now, as an adult, I’m much more likely to connect to God through my intellect. I feel most connected to God through writing and studying Scripture, and I tend to distrust my own feelings regarding God and His place in my life.
It is actually through my study of God’s Word that I am starting to see a place for both emotion AND reason in my personal faith. In Deuteronomy 6:5, God issues the command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Later, Jesus would update this command, telling His disciples to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37, emphasis mine). Tara-Leigh Cobble explains this expansion of Jesus’ command in The Bible Recap: “The Hebrew word for heart combines the words we use for heart and mind; it’s where desire and will overlap, and it’s what drives our actions.” So when God was commanding the Israelites to love Him with their hearts, it was implied that this encompassed their minds as well. They were to be both Thinkers AND Feelers in their worship of Him.
In the same section of The Bible Recap, Tara-Leigh Cobble goes on to say this about the heart: “Without a new heart, it’s impossible to please God. Only when He changes our hearts will we respond to Him rightly, because He doesn’t just want to be obeyed—He wants to be known and loved.” In other words, God transforms our hearts (including our thinking and our feeling), and it is through these transformed hearts that we fully understand, love, and obey Him.
Jesus frequently references the heart in His teachings, perhaps most notably in His famous Sermon on the Mount in which He says, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). According to this website, the Greek word for heart is used here and it “refers to the spiritual center of life. It is where thoughts, desires, sense of purpose, will, understanding, and character reside.” Once again, we see that “heart” encompasses both our feelings and our thoughts, and when these are all in alignment (when our hearts are “pure”) we are able to fully experience the wonder and glory of God.
God created us as whole beings, complete with bodies AND spirits, hearts AND minds, emotions AND reason. And He wants all of those parts of us, regardless of our personality preferences. I may never strike the perfect balance of Thinking vs Feelings when it comes to my personal worship, but God will continue to speak to me however I come to Him. And He will continue to refine these parts of me, sanctifying my whole self so that I may draw ever closer to Him.
God, thank you for giving me a mind that can reflect rationally on the truth of who you are and a heart that can experience your beauty. I pray that you will help me to make peace with all parts of myself, recognizing both as good gifts that were designed to work together in worship. Help me to entrust you with my feelings and my thoughts. I invite you to transform my heart and my mind to be more in alignment with you.
This is the final installment of my Lenten Reflections series as I will be taking all of next week (Holy Week) off of posting. Writing this series has been such a wonderful experience for me, and it was a privilege to have you reading along. Thanks for being here.