INTJ

I'm taking a six-week course on spiritual formation. The text for the class is Robert Mulholland's Invitation to a Journey: A Roadmap for Spiritual Formation. Mulholland's definition of spiritual formation is "the process of being conformed to the likeness of Christ for the sake of others." Part of his approach to spiritual formation is the idea that we all tend to "do" spiritual formation according to our strengths. We miss out on opportunities to grow because we ignore those spiritual disciplines that are associated with our weaknesses. For example, an introverted person would normally jump at the chance for a silent, solitary retreat, and benefit greatly from it. On the other hand, the introvert might be prone to pass up a small group setting, thereby missing out on wisdom, experience, and insight of others.

To that end, Mulholland writes in-depth about personality types as defined by Carl Jung, the pioneer psychologist. To Mulholland, knowing our personality types helps us define our areas of weakness so we can compensate from them, experiencing a well-rounded spiritually formed life.

Corresponding to that portion of the book, our class took the Myers-Briggs personality type instrument. I had mixed feelings about my test. Some of the questions dealing with schedules and calendars sounded appealing to me and I marked them so. Some, however, sounded appalling to me, and I marked them so. I felt like I was all over the map on some of the questions, but apparently not, for my result couldn't have been clearer.

I am an INTJ. In a nutshell that means:

• My energy comes from Introversion (the inner world of thoughts and ideas), as opposed to Extroversion (the outer world of people and things).
• I perceive things through Intuition (gain insight through understanding and theory), as opposed to Sensing (gaining insight through hands-on experience).
• I make decisions by Thinking (giving weight to impartial principles and impersonal facts), as opposed to Feeling (giving weight to personal and human concerns).
• I live my outer life by Judging (a lifestyle that is more structured and geared toward closure), as opposed to Perceiving (a lifestyle that is more flexible, adaptable, and open).

As the results were being explained to the class, the only section I felt fuzzy on was Intuition/Sensing. I felt I could go either way with them at the time, but the results said Intuition and as I read more about it I see that as clearly correct.

Read more about INTJ here. It is eerie how dead-on me it reads, at least from my side of the fence.