What Can Hinder Your Intimacy with God? Yep, Your Personality.

I’m an intercessor. Always have been, even when I was a kid and hadn’t heard that word yet. It’s always seemed super-obvious that if you want to see a person helped or a situation changed, the thing to do is pray.

This is not because I’m an Enneagram Seven. There are intercessors of every personality stripe. However, I began to notice a while back how my Seven-ness affects this natural inclination. I would often take on causes that struck my heart and pray fervently – people in terrible situations or world events that devastated many.

These weren’t assignments from God; my own self assigned them to me. I began to see a pattern that looked a lot like me trying to overcome by proxy and by my own effort the lie at the base of my soul: that I am in imminent danger of being trapped in deprivation or pain.

Now, it’s not bad or wrong to pray for things that pierce your heart; that’s not my point. My point is that I have been prone to take on burdens that I wasn’t designated to carry, simply because I was following the patterns of my personality type. I was often (subconsciously) trying to eradicate suffering in others so that I wouldn’t have to look at it or feel afraid of it. Victory in prayer meant victory over my most primal fear.

This kind of “victory” also prevented me from doing what was far more effective: getting quiet before God to ask what he wanted me to partner with him in prayer about.

That’s just one example of how our personality hinders our ability to be intimate with God. There are a million others. Each Type has things it really nails about God (for me, one of them is joy) and things it really fails to grasp.

This thick veneer of personality that overlays the true self affects how we think about and feel about God, whether we’re able to be still and silent before him, why and how we serve others, whether or how we pray, and more.

We can crack this veneer through greater self-awareness. The Enneagram provides greater clarity about who we truly are and are not than any other tool the Holy Spirit has led me to (yes, yes, aside from the Bible, though that’s so much more than a tool). Learning your personality type’s tricks and foibles opens your eyes to ways that your ability to know and be close to God is limited.

If we want to be who God intended us to be on this earth, to reflect his glory in the way only we can, our goal must be to break through that veneer. It is hard work, but we are not without guides.

The Holy Spirit is the first and foremost of them, and there’s no shortage these days of Enneagram books written by Christians. I’ve also created two audio programs to help you along this all-important journey.

You only get one go-round on this earth – will you step into all God has for you? Will you move toward self-knowledge and greater intimacy with the one who made you?

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