MBTI Prayers

Reportedly, the following prayers have been around for years, but this is the first time I've seen them. They're so dead on!

A word about personality typing: One thing I've realized is that if you want to know and understand your own personality, taking a test may not be the best option. It's better to understand the concepts behind the test by reading a book like Please Understand Me II by John Keirsey and then think about them over time with regard to yourself and people you know. I know this because my own test results have changed over the years. (The latest is that I think I'm either an INFP or an INTP.) Not only does the book help you understand people as individuals, but it explains how the types relate to one another. And without this understanding, knowing your type is not very useful.

Another thing you will discover is that some people are hard to type because they have such full and rich personalities. They are very creative (love to dance, research, make music, etc.), a perceiver (P) strength, and yet they are well scheduled and discriminating and are excellent teachers, judger strengths (J). Introverts can learn how to fill out their latent capacity for extroversion and extroverts can learn how to hold back when necessary. Some NFs can also be thoroughly guided by logic (I think of my pastor, Doug Wilson) and perhaps some NTs can also be intuitive sorts of people as well.

And another interesting thing is that people can compliment one another over time. All of the types are relative. For example, when I am at home, I am definitely the extrovert of the family and also seem to have my mind made up about everything (J), but among my friends and acquaintances, I am definitely more of an I and a P. Well, here are the prayers. Enjoy!

ISTJ - God, help me to begin relaxing about little details tomorrow at 11:41:32 am.

ISFJ - Lord, help me to be more laid back, and help me to do it exactly right.

INFJ - Lord, help me not be a perfectionist (Did I spell that right?)

INTJ - Lord, keep me open to others’ ideas, wrong though they may be.

ISTP - God, help me to consider people’s feelings, even if most of them are hypersensitive.

ISFP - Lord, help me to stand up for my rights (if You don’t mind my asking).

INFP - Lord, help me to finish everything I sta

INTP - Lord, help me be less independent, but let me do it my way.

ESTP - God, help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they’re usually not my fault.

ESFP - God, help me to take things more seriously especially parties and dancing.

ENFP - God, help me keep my mind on one thing - Look, a bird - at a time.

ENTP - God, help me follow established procedures today. On second thought, I’ll settle for a few minutes.

ESTJ - God, help me to try not to run everything, but if You need some help, just ask.

ESFJ - Lord, give me patience and I mean right now.

ENFJ - God, help me to do only what I can and trust You for the rest. Do You mind putting that in writing?

ENTJ - God, help me to slow downandnotrushthroughwhatIdoAmen.

Who's really doing science Mr. Robinson?

The following C.S. Lewis quote reminds me of Frank Bruce Robinson, leader of the "new religion" which he called Psychiana, headquartered right here in Moscow Idaho. He didn't believe that people needed to go to church. But here Lewis compares the local church to a scientific instrument for learning about God:

God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body.

Consequently, the one really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together. Christian brotherhood is, so to speak, the technical equipment for this science--the laboratory outfit. That is why all these people who turn up every few years with some patent simplified religion of their own as a substitute for the Christian tradition are really wasting time. Like a man who has no instrument but an old pair of field glasses setting out to put all the real astronomers right. He may be a clever chap--he may be cleverer than some of the real astronomers, but he is not giving himself a chance. And two years later everyone has forgotten all about him, but the real science is still going on (Mere Christianity, 165).

Not too many people remember that Frank Bruce Robinson was once the largest employer in Moscow and had quite a following around the country of people who had heard him speak or purchased his 20 lessons, but the local churches live on.