I'm starting 2018 with another Five Minute Friday post: we are given a one-word prompt and write about it for five minutes. This week's word is MOTIVATE.
I love reading about the Enneagram. It's a kind of psychological/spiritual model based on nine interconnected personality types. I'm currently reading Chris Heuertz's book The Sacred Enneagram; after that I'll read a new book I got recently, Marilyn Vancil's Self to Lose, Self to Find. Both of these books look at the Enneagram from a Christian perspective.(Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile's The Road Back to You is another great resource on the Enneagram, especially for those who aren't familiar with it and want to learn the basics.)
One of the Enneagram's main focal points is the core motivation of each type. I am a Six on the Enneagram; the Six's core motivation is fear or anxiety. When I read descriptions of the Six, I get an uncomfortable, slightly embarrassed feeling: Yes, that's me all right.
I'm the child who was afraid to go outside in case the Apollo spaceship fell on my head.
I'm the person who reads something in the newspaper about (let's say) bedbugs and thinks, "Oh, no, bedbugs. I wonder if we have bedbugs. OMG, LOOK, A BEDBUG! No, wait, that's a flax seed..."
I'm the person who sees a freezing-rain warning and thinks, "OK, we're going to have freezing rain and the power's going to go off and the sump pump won't work and the basement will flood..."
Someone I follow on Twitter is creating Enneagram mugs, and the mug for type Six says "I'm a 6, and I saw this coming." That rings true to me. Sixes are so good at anticipating the worst. And while the dreaded thing often doesn't happen at all, when it does the Six faces it with calm resolve. There's almost a sense of relief that finally it's happened, just as we knew it would.
I can laugh about it, but being driven by fear can be kind of exhausting. And my little examples don't even come close to the kind of fear some people experience on a daily basis.
God never meant for us to live motivated by fear. According to the Enneagram, the antidote to fear is faith. I need more faith in 2018.
"Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." - Mark 9:24
