Re-Learning Yourself: Five Defining Words (with Added Commentary)

Jeremiah 1:5 - "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee ..."

In our RA class, we've been learning all about identity achievement and moratorium and foreclosure and identity diffusion and all that stuff! I find it all very fascinating, for some reason. Some aspects of psychology really fascinate me, but others just bore me to death. I probably have a slight interest in psych so I can do a better job with my characterization. Who knows how God assigned interests, if they aren't entirely nature?

Anyway, as part of the class, we were all asked to write down five words that describe us. I found the activity fascinating, particularly in observing the way people responded to the request and how it revealed a lot about them. As for myself, I took the activity very seriously. These are the qualities I wrote, in order, from the way they came to my head:

Wordsmith

Troll

LDS

Off-kilter

Focused

Now, I found the order I wrote interesting, as well as the reasoning behind them.

I think, had I been in Jamaica or even Washington, I would have put LDS first. However, because I was in a room full of Mormons, I guess I didn't immediately see that as a distinguishing feature. After all, in that setting, it really wasn't. As such, 'Wordsmith' came first, something I do--and do often--and of which I was quite proud. Troll came next, which I felt like captured my mischievous, sarcastic, even negative, and somewhat flippant, personality. The next two words were unique in that they described my mental state rather than my actions, the latter of which were clearly defined by the first three words. Both 'off-kilter' and 'focused' defined how I view my own thought processes, two words I almost feel like contradict each other with any other explanation. I personally feel I think about things in a very different way than most people, reaching conclusions more quickly in some fields and completely missing the point in other fields, thus explaining the two contradictory words. My 'focus,' as well, is unfortunately entirely selective. For example, I'm really good at writing a blog post for an hour or so, but fall asleep when I read a geography textbook for longer than five minutes. 

Anyway, stepping off my self-indulgent rant, I wrote about all of this because one of the reasons we're here on earth is to relearn ourselves. Nobody knows us better than God, because God has known us at least six thousand years longer than we've known ourselves. He saw our entire pre-earthly progression, and our communications with Him on this earth are designed to help us remember not only our relationship with Him, but also who we really are beneath all this flesh, if you'll pardon the phraseology. 

So, my challenge to you is to try to describe yourself in five words! Really dig deep and figure out who you think you are at your core. I don't know how accurate my own list was, and I bet I'll adjust it as time goes on and I mature and develop over the course of my life. Then, once you have your list, pray about it! Thank God for the things you are proud of and ask Him for help with the things you're unsure about. I promise it will totally be worth your time.

I wrote a commentary about this post on April 9, 2015. Click here to read!