Like An Anchor

Drawn To God

12 December, 202020 August, 2021Marissa

My new favorite Bible Study tool is the New English Translation with its 60,000+ translator’s notes. As I was perusing the pages (you can get a print version or access the whole thing for free online), I noticed the translation notes on Song of Songs take up more space than the actual text. Apparently, not only is this text’s interpretation widely debated, but it is also notoriously difficult to translate. As you might know if you’ve read some of my other posts or my short book God’s Love Story, I favor the interpretation that the Song is both a celebration of human love and an allegory of Christ’s love for the church. With that in mind, here’s one of the verses with a footnote that I found intriguing:

Draw me[a] after you; let us hurry!
May the king bring me into his bedroom chambers!
[note a] The verb מָשַׁךְ (mashakh, “draw”) is a figurative expression (hypocatastasis) which draws an implied comparison between the physical acting of leading a person with the romantic action of leading a person in love. Elsewhere it is used figuratively of a master gently leading an animal with leather cords (Hos 11:4) and of a military victor leading his captives (Jer 31:3). The point of comparison might be that the woman wants to be the willing captive of the love of her beloved, that is, a willing prisoner of his love.
Song of Songs 1:4, NET

Another translation for mawshak in this verse is “Take me away with you” (NIV, WEB). There are nuances of meaning for this Hebrew word (as the NET footnote points out), but the basic one is “to draw, drag, seize” (Brown–Driver–Briggs; Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament). Here in Song, and in a few other places as well, it can be understood as “entice, allure, woo” (TWOT). In those verses, it is connected with one of the many pictures God gives us for relating to Him–as a lover alluring, wooing, and drawing His bride to Himself.

https://pixabay.com/photos/hands-hand-together-prayer-5216585/Drawn To God | LikeAnAnchor.com — Image by Pearl via Lightstock

Alluring us with Love, Kindness and Grace

Hosea is one of the books that makes the analogy of God as bridegroom and husband most clearly. God instructs the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute because ancient Israel “continually commits spiritual prostitution by turning away form the Lord” (Hos 1:2, NET). God used Hosea’s marriage and his writings to teach that, even though Israel was unfaithful, God still promised “in the future I will allure her,” and then “you will call, ‘My husband’; you will never again call me, ‘My master'” (Hos. 2:14, 16, NET).

Later in Hosea, God talks about how He “drew” (mawshak) Israel out of Egypt “with leather cords” (NET), “with cords of a man” (KJV), or “cords of human kindness” (NIV). Though the NET presents a compelling case for the “leather” translation, I favor “human kindness” because it connects more strongly to the overall theme of God wooing His people that is found so often in Hosea. It would also echo the language God uses in Jeremiah 31:3.

Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness.”
Jeremiah 31:3, WEB

Alternate translations for this passage include “That is why I have continued to be faithful to you” (NET), “That is why I have drawn you to myself through my unfailing kindness” (NET footnote), and “This is why in my grace I draw you to me” (CJB). God’s drawing of us to Himself is prompted by His everlasting love, and it is done with faithfulness and kindness.

Longing for God to Satisfy Us

The time Jeremiah speaks of when God draws His people to Him is followed by a time “when watchmen will call out … ‘Come! Let us go to Zion to worship the Lord our God!’” (31:6, NET). Those who claim the Lord as their God are eager to be drawn, rescued, and gathered by Him (Jer. 31:7-9). Their response here is much like the Beloved in Song of Songs–take me away! draw me after you!–and like that of David in this psalm.

How precious is your loving kindness, God!
The children of men take refuge under the shadow of your wings.
They shall be abundantly satisfied with the abundance of your house.
You will make them drink of the river of your pleasures.
For with you is the spring of life.
In your light we will see light.
Oh continue (mawshak) your loving kindness to those who know you,
your righteousness to the upright in heart.
Psalm 36:7-10, WEB

We can find all we need to satisfy us in the great One who loves us, the Lord our God. We can call on Him to draw us closer, and He will faithfully respond to our longing for Him.

Featured Image by Jackson David from Pixabay

Update on the Anxiety Kitty and Grad School

8 December, 20207 December, 2020Marissa

I was chatting with my sister a couple days ago about blog post topics, and she asked if I’d ever updated my readers on how Flynn is doing. When I adopted this 2-year-old cat back in March 2018, I shared “Lessons From My Nervous Cat” and a follow-up post a few months later called “Anxiety Kitty: The Not-So-Surprising Way Pets Improve Mental Health.” He was such a frightened cat when I adopted him. After a few months, though, he’d started to settle in and trust me. I’m pleased to report that now, a few years after his adoption, he’s turned into a happy, contented cat.

Update on the Anxiety Kitty | LikeAnAnchor.com

This year has been one with big changes for us. I started grad school, which means Flynn and I moved from my parents’ home to an apartment shared with my sister. I was worried he wouldn’t do well with that transition to a new and smaller place, but he’s settled in quite nicely and only hides now if strange people knock on the door (as I write this, he’s under the bed because UPS dropped off a package). We did discover during the move that he hates car rides, even though I borrowed a medium-size dog carrier from some friends so he’d fit comfortably since my cat carrier is too small for this chonker (he is on a diet so please don’t worry about him too much).

We’ve discovered that Flynn likes watching horror movies with my sister (something I’m not interested in, so she appreciates having a movie-watching buddy). We’ve also found that he steals cotton swabs out of bathroom trashcans, he likes to hang-out in the bathtub for some reason, and ping-pong balls are his new favorite toy. He also likes to nap on my pillow since the head of my bed is near a window where he can spy on the neighbors, including the occasional bird or squirrel.

As I’d shared in my previous posts about Flynn, I struggle with nervousness and anxiety too. And I’m thankful to report that Flynn’s not the only one of us who’s doing well with the recent changes in my life. The anxiety isn’t all gone, but I am doing better. There were some days (including a couple weeks in the middle of the semester) when I was starting to worry about myself again but I got through it. I’ll probably set up a couple appointments with the on-campus counselors next semester, mostly as a preventative sort of thing to help keep myself mentally healthy.

I’ve also realized that I have a much better sense of who I am and what I bring to the table now than I did 12 years ago when I started college the first time. In one sense I suppose that should be obvious–it was so long ago that I’d be worried if I hadn’t grown! But sometimes I think it’s easy to miss how much progress we’ve made until there’s some big change to shake things up and make us take a close look at ourselves.

Update on the Anxiety Kitty and Grad School | LikeAnAnchor.com

I can’t imagine 18-year-old Marissa working directly with people coaching them on how to do something like improve their writing, or see her speaking up during meetings and offering suggestions for making the campus writing center better. She also had a lot more difficulty adjusting to college than I’m having now with coming back, even though there were 8 years between graduating with my Bachelor’s degree and coming back to school for my Master’s. In some ways, being back in academia feels like coming home (which I’m taking as confirmation I’m in the right graduate program).

Life’s not without its challenges (an understatement, especially in 2020) but there are good things happening, too. I’m hoping that’s true in your life as well, and I’d love to hear about it!

What are some of the positive changes, challenges overcome, or good things that have happened in your life this year?

Speaking In Agreement With God

5 December, 20204 December, 2020Marissa

A few days ago, a specific phrase in the book of Hebrews caught my eye. When I think of this verse, I usually picture the King James translation (or one of the many which follow it closely), which says, “let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name” (Heb. 13:15). This time though, I read it in the World English Bible, which says, “the fruit of lips which proclaim allegiance to his name.”

“Proclaim allegiance” seems like quite a different thing than “give thanks,” so I looked up the Greek word this phrase is translated from. It’s homologeo (G3670), which comes from two root words: homou (G3670), “together with,” and lego (G3004), “to say.” Put together, this word means “to assent, consent, admit,” confess, and/or “be in accord with someone” (Zodhiates’s dictionary). It can also mean “to say the same thing as another” or “declare openly,” often specifically in the sense that you’re proclaiming yourself a worshiper of someone (Thayer’s dictionary). It’s about more than saying “thank you” or even “confessing” (LEB for Heb. 13:15) or “acknowledging” (NET) God’s name. There’s also an element of aligning yourself with God and agreeing with Him.

A Deep, Relational Commitment

How we speak about God–particularly whether or not we align ourselves with Him in our words–matters deeply to Him and affects our relationship with both the Father and Son. Jesus made this very clear early in His ministry.

Whoever, then, acknowledges me before people, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever denies me before people, I will deny him also before my Father in heaven.
Matthew 10:32-33, NET

There ought to be a “togetherness” in how we speak about God and with God. If we are acknowledging, confessing, and proclaiming allegiance to Christ, then He does the same for us, claiming us before His Father and “before God’s angels” (Luke 12:8-9). It can’t just be words, though. Our acknowledgement has to hit a deeper level than mere lip-service.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned that those who just say, “Lord, Lord” without doing God’s will won’t be in the kingdom of heaven. To them, Christ says, “I will declare (homologeo) to them, ‘I never knew you'” (Matt. 7:21-23, NET). Speaking together with God is not about good-sounding words that aren’t backed-up with actions. It’s about a confession that changes your life. It’s a commitment so deep that it can even be dangerous (which is what held some people back from aligning themselves with Christ when He walked on his earth, see John 9:22; 12:42).

Speaking In Agreement With God | LikeAnAnchor.com — Image by Pearl via Lightstock

Aligning with God for Salvation

Confession of this deep, aligning together sort is something that’s connected to salvation. Homologeo is the word used, for example, in this famous scripture:

if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation.
Romans 10:9-10, NET

John makes a similar observation in his first epistle. First, he points out that “If we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, WEB). John goes on to talk about the fact that “Whoever denies the Son doesn’t have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also,” and that we can “know the Spirit of God” by this criteria: “every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God” (1 John 2:23; 4:2, WEB).

If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides in him and he in God.
1 John 4;15, NET

In a footnote on 1 John 4:15, the NET translators say, “Here μένει (menei, from μένω [menō]) has been translated as ‘resides’ because the confession is constitutive of the relationship, and the resulting state (‘God resides in him’) is in view.” For these translators, homologeo is a key component of relationship with God.

Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk

The idea that this sort of confession is a life-long process of speaking and living together with God does not just come from a dictionary or a translator’s footnote. Paul connects Timothy’s “good confession” with fighting “the good fight of faith” and taking hold of eternal life (1 Tim. 6:12, WEB). Hebrews links homologeo to the people of faith who “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth” and lived accordingly (Heb. 11:13, WEB). When done right, our confession is a life-long, transformative thing that involves the fruit of our lips matching our deeds, unlike the people Paul speaks of in this passage:

They profess to know God but with their deeds they deny him, since they are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.
Titus 1:16, NET

We want to live very differently than this–as people who profess God and also by our deeds “proclaim allegiance to his name.” Throughout his letters, Paul uses homologeo to talk about salvation and the importance of our verbal confession turning into an allegiance manifested in how we live. It’s about relationship, and choosing to use our words and our lives to align with God and let other people know that we walk with Him.

Featured image by Monika Robak from Pixabay

Will You be A David or A Saul?

28 November, 202027 November, 2020Marissa

After God brought Ancient Israel out of Egypt and gave them the promised land, Moses and Joshua–the guides he’d worked with to lead the people–passed away. In the years following, God worked through the priesthood and judges to lead His people as they struggled to follow Him faithfully. After the priesthood and their current prophet’s sons grew corrupt, the people decided the best solution to the problem of who should lead them was to have a king like all the other nations did.

The Lord said to Samuel, “Do everything the people request of you. For it is not you that they have rejected, but it is me that they have rejected as their king.
1 Samuel 8:7, NET

The people decided they didn’t want God ruling over them directly, so God honored their request and picked a man to lead them. The first man God picked for this task was Saul. His rule didn’t last, though, and he was replaced by David. Anyone familiar with scripture knows about King David; he was the man after God’s own heart who is the most prominent human ancestor of the Messiah, Jesus. But what about Saul? Was he just a stepping stone to David; a disposable king? Or did he get the same opportunity as David and responded differently?

This is an important question for us to answer because it gets to the heart of how God works with people. He chose Saul, and David, and if we’re called to be in His family today He chose us as well. And because the Lord does not change (Mal. 3:6; Heb. 13:8) the way He worked with people thousands of years ago can still teach us about how He works with us today.

To Lead, Rule, and Deliver

Both David and Saul were identified and chosen by God, and anointed as king by Samuel the prophet. Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin, “the smallest of Israel’s tribes,” and he initially had an ego to match (1 Sam. 9:21, NET). He was “little in his own sight” when God made him “head of the tribes of Israel” (1 Sam. 15: 17, WEB), and he even hid from his coronation (1 Sam. 10:22).

Then Samuel took a small container of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s head. Samuel kissed him and said, “The Lord has chosen you to lead his people Israel! You will rule over the Lord’s people and you will deliver them from the power of the enemies who surround them.
1 Samuel 10:1, NET (click for explanation of why this verse is longer in the NET translation than most English versions)

God entrusted Saul with the task of leading, ruling, and delivering his people. Saul did this for years, but after he lost his humility and chose a path of disobedience David was chosen to replace him. This time, the text specifies that God “sought out for himself a man who is loyal to him” (1 Sam. 13:14, NET), who was selected based on the condition of his heart (1 Sam. 16:1-13). Though the “lead, rule, deliver” language isn’t used, David quickly took on that role and showed the commitment of his heart through the actions he took to honor God.

The first example we have of this is the story of David verses Goliath. We think of this as a wonderful underdog story and a demonstration of David’s faith, but it was also a demonstration of Saul’s failure. When Saul was chosen as king, scripture tells us he “stood head and shoulders above all the other Israelites (1 Sam. 10:23). The NET footnote on 1 Sam. 17:4 says that the average height of an Israelite man at this time was about 5′ 3″ (1.6 m), making Saul about 6′ (1.8 m) tall. When Goliath, who was likely between 6′ 7″ and 9′ 5″ (2 to 2.9 m) tall, showed up it should have been the tall warrior-king of Israel who stood up against him in the Lord’s name to deliver the people of God. Instead, it was the ruddy and handsome shepherd boy who stepped into that role (1 Sam. 16:12; 17:33-36).

Will You be A David or A Saul? | LikeAnAnchor.com — Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay

Heart and Spirit

The main difference between David and Saul was not that one was given a head start by God or that God wanted one to succeed and the other to fail. After Saul was anointed and chosen, “the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul” (1 Sam. 10:10; 11:6). Also, “God changed his inmost person” (1 Sam. 10:9). Other translations of this line include, “gave him another heart” (NAB; NRSV) and “gave Saul a new nature” (TEV). We don’t know how much of God’s Spirit Saul had or how long the Holy Spirit was with him (only that “the spirit of the Lord had turned away from Saul” by the time of David’s anointing), but we do know that God gave His spirit to this man and worked with him on a heart-level. Though Saul lost God’s spirit, he started out with God’s full backing. Saul was not set up to fail. It was his own choices that led to his removal as king.

Then Samuel said to Saul, “You have made a foolish choice! You have not obeyed the commandment that the Lord your God gave you. Had you done that, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom will not continue. The Lord has sought out for himself a man who is loyal to him, and the Lord has appointed him to be leader over his people, for you have not obeyed what the Lord commanded you.”
1 Samuel 13:13-14, NET

Later, God told Samuel, “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from me and has not done what I told him to do” (1 Sam. 15:10, NET). He was saddened when Saul disqualified himself, but it was Saul’s decision to make. Saul refused to obey God and he wasn’t humble enough to take responsibility for his actions–even when he acknowledged he’d sinned his concern was with saving face in front of the people–so the Lord tore the kingdom away from him (1 Sam. 15:16-31).

Of course, David also sinned against the Lord, sometimes in spectacularly horrible ways. But instead of defending himself and insisting, “but I have obeyed the Lord!” David admitted, “I have sinned against the Lord” and sincerely repents (2 Sam. 12:13-14; Psalm 51). David wasn’t perfect any more than Saul was, but he had a heart that prompted him to continually turn back and seek the Lord. He stayed humble, teachable, and obedient (2 Sam. 7:18-27).

Living to Honor God

What about us? Have we begun to take the blessings and honors God gives us for granted? Do we go our own way and ignore the Lord’s commandments, thinking we know best and He’ll appreciate whatever we want to give Him? Or do we take the lessons of Saul’s story to heart and instead follow David’s example of humble gratitude for God’s divine favor, commitment to obedience, and sincere repentance when we miss the mark?

God “desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth,” as well as to “come to repentance” (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9, WEB). That desire manifests itself in Jesus dying for our sins, the offer of salvation, and God’s longsuffering patience toward all of us. He has set us up for success and wants to give us eternal life. Part of whether or not that comes to pass is up to us, though.

So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence, for the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort—for the sake of his good pleasure—is God.
Philippians 2:12-13, NET

Salvation is something God accomplishes in us through His grace. It is also something we work on with Him for our whole lives. Like David, we need to show our commitment to honor God through the actions we take. We need to stay humble, in awe of the fact that God would choose to work with us, and never devalue His love or His favor.

Preparing Our Hearts for the Word of God

21 November, 202020 November, 2020Marissa

Last week, the church group I usually meet with canceled services, so I tuned into the livestream of the Messianic group I attended before moving for grad school. And I’m glad I did. The rabbi’s message was about preparing our hearts for an uncertain future, and I found it very encouraging. I hope you find today’s blog post, inspired by that message, encouraging as well 🙂

As you may remember from some of my previous posts, I love the book of Hosea. I don’t think I’ve ever studied this particular verse in depth, though:

Sow righteousness for yourselves,
reap unfailing love.
Break up the unplowed ground for yourselves,
for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes and showers deliverance on you.
Hosea 10:12, NET

There is so much agricultural imagery used in the Bible, and I find this particular one especially beautiful. Sowing seeds of righteousness leads to harvests of unfailing love. There’s preparation needed, though. We reap what we sow (Gal. 6:7-8) and the harvest is also affected by where we sow. You know this if you’ve ever planted anything. Even a lawn won’t grow well if you sow weedy seed or don’t prepare the soil properly. The same is true in our hearts.

Parable of the Sower

One of Jesus’s best known parables is that Parable of the Sower, which appears in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8. In this parable, the seed is the word of God and the type of ground it falls on is connected to the state of the person’s heart and how they respond to the word.

First, you have the hard-packed soil of a “well-worn path” (NET footnote on Matt. 13:3). Seed that lands on earth like that has no chance to grow, and for this analogy the word is immediately snatched away from their hearts by the wicked one, Satan the devil (Matt. 13:9; Mark 4:15; Luke 8:12). Second, you have the rocky ground; a thin layer of soil over “a limestone base” where there was no soil deep enough for roots to grow (NET footnote on Matt. 13:5). This relates to someone who’s happy to hear the word, but their faith isn’t deep and they abandon it when trials come (Matt. 13:20-21; Mark 4:16-17; Luke 8:13).

Third is the seeds that fell among thorns, which in Palestine can refer to weeds “up to 6 feet in height” with “a major root system” (NET footnote on Matt. 13:7). These are the ones who get crowded out by what’s competing for soil space; the people whose hearts are filled with “worldly cares” and “the desire for other things” that “choke the word, and it produces nothing” (Mark 4:19, NET). Finally, there is the seed that lands in good soil–tilled deep and prepared as Hosea talks about–where the word finds a place to grow. These people, “after hearing the word, cling to it with an honest and good heart and bear fruit with steadfast endurance” (Luke 8:15, NET).

Preparing Our Hearts for the Word of God | LikeAnAnchor.com — Image by meganelford0 from Pixabay

Determining the Focus of Your Heart

I think for a long while, it has been easy for many of us (at least in the U.S.) to coast along with shallow faith or faith that’s barely competing with the other things in our lives. We dare not keep that up now. Whether or not you believe we’re living in the last days, things are changing in the world and we will face challenges to our faith. We need to prepare our hearts so we’ll be ready to follow God no matter what, unlike this ancient king:

King Rehoboam … did evil because he was not determined to follow the Lord.
2 Chronicles 12:13-14, NET

In Hebrew, the last part of this verse literally means, “because he did not set his heart to seek the Lord” (NET footnote). The focus and direction of our hearts is of vital importance! We can’t just coast along thinking “eh, I’m an okay person so I don’t really need to bother with changing anything or preparing myself.” But we are responsible for preparing, establishing, and determining the direction our lives will go and how we respond to God’s word. If we’re not taking action to be “good ground,” it is very easy to slip into living lives that do not glorify God. In contrast to Rehoboam’s example, we have someone like Ezra:

For Ezra had set his heart to seek Yahweh’s law, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.
Ezra 7:10, WEB

We need to be careful and diligent to “break up the unplowed ground” in our lives and hearts; to be sure we never forget God’s word or let it “depart from our hearts” (Hos. 10:12; Deut. 4:9). Determine in your heart to follow God. Seek His ways and do what He tells you in His word. That’s how you grow a “root system” of faith that will keep you steady no matter what comes.

Asking God to Prepare Us

We get a say in what kind of ground we are. We can “break up the unplowed ground” and “seek the Lord,” cultivating a heart where God’s word can sink in, take root, and grow. We can weed distractions out of our lives to make room for God’s character to flourish in us. We can dig ourselves into His truths and cultivate a relationship with Him that will sustain us through trails. And we can ask God to help us with this.

Yahweh, you have heard the desire of the humble.
You will prepare their heart.
You will cause your ear to hear
Psalm 10:17, WEB

Yahweh, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this desire forever in the thoughts of the heart of your people, and prepare their heart for you
1 Chronicles 29:18, WEB

David, as “a man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22), knew the importance of preparing your heart to seek God. He also recognized that preparing our hearts requires a commitment to God and a recognition of our spiritual helplessness without Him. When we ask Him, He will help us prepare our hearts to take in His word, understand Him, and know Him. So long as we do our part to seek Him and cultivate lives where His word can flourish in us, He will make sure that our hearts are safe in Him.

Featured image by Pexels from Pixabay

If Your Myers-Briggs® Type Was a Superhero, What Superpower Would You Have?

17 November, 202017 November, 2020Marissa

Sometimes, I really enjoy writing and reading fun, silly posts like “Here’s the Greek God or Goddess You’d Be, Based On Your Personality Type” or “Your Not-At-All-Confusing Guide To Finding Out If An INFJ Agrees With You.” Today’s post falls into that category. Don’t take it too seriously, but it’s fun to think about (and I don’t know about you, but I could use some not-too-serious things to think about right now).

Last week, I suggested, “Which superpower would you like to have? Which one do you think you’d actually have based on your personality?” as an expressivist journaling prompt. This post is an extension of that. Assuming that if you developed a superpower it would be based off your personality, what sort of power might each of the different Myers-Briggs® types have?

ENFJ – Shapeshifting

Like other FJ types, ENFJs are good at blending into just about any social situation. Once they’ve got a feel for how a group works, they can perfectly mimic the people around them or turn themselves into the sort of person they need to be in order to fit in or lead. Shapeshifting or mimicry seems like the sort of superpower that could grow out of that personality trait.

INFJ – Mind Reading

INFJs already have people half-convinced we can read minds, so this choice shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’ve always thought that if I were to have super powers, it would be something like mind reading or mood-sensing (though water manipulation and telekinesis are actually on the top of my wish-list). INFJs are usually really good at picking up on patterns in other people’s behaviors and guessing what they’re thinking, and in many ways superpowered mindreading is a natural extension of that talent.

ENFP – Persuasion

ENFPs are already charming people who are great at convincing others to see and do things their way. I decided to call it persuasion instead of mind control because I suspect a superpowered ENFP would tend to manipulate more than outright control other people. I could easily see an ENFP superhero using their ability to deescalate fights and turn final showdowns into dance offs or philosophy discussions.

INFP – Invisibility

INFPs can often feel as if they’re overlooked and misunderstood. Literally fading out of sight with an invisibility superpower would let them turn something that may feel like an annoying feature of their personality into an asset. Like many introverts, INFPs aren’t all that interested in being in the limelight. Being able to help people without drawing too much attention to themselves or having to face supervillains head-on seems like a very INFP way to superhero.

ENTJ – Telekinesis

ENTJs are often efficient, innovative, and forward thinking types who like to control the world around them. They’re also good at holding several different ideas and perspectives at once, and juggling a wide array of responsibilities. The ability to move objects with their minds might not be a direct extension of a personality trait but I suspect ENTJs would find telekinesis very useful.

INTJ – Future Predicting

Like INFJs, INTJs are really good at picking up on patterns. They’re usually more focused on patterns that have to do with facts and data rather than people, though, and that makes them good at planning for the future. A superpowered version of this talent could give them the ability to actually predict the future with an impressive degree of accuracy.

ENTP – Reality Warping

ENTPs are often the sorts of people who come up with new, innovative ideas that change the way the world works. For a superpower, I think this talent could expand into the ability to warp and shape reality itself. It also seems a good fit for the charming side that many ENTPs have, which can persuade you to see things they way they want you to.

INTP – Teleportation

INTPs aren’t a type that likes to waste time (at least by their own definition of wasted time). They often prefer to spend their time thinking rather than doing, and when they do choose to act they don’t enjoy delays like the necessity to travel getting in the way. Teleportation gives them an instant ability to jump wherever they need to be, accelerating their ability to put innovative ideas into action and also ensuring they’re never stuck in a situation they don’t want to be.

ESFJ – Healing

ESFJs are often kind, gentle people who are deeply invested in helping others. Many go into helping professions or spend a good amount of their time helping the people around them find comfort and healing. Though I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first-pick superpower for every ESFJ, I can’t think of an ESFJ who wouldn’t want the ability to touch people and make them well.

ISFJ – Force Shields

ISFJs are the quintessential guardian type. Even without superpowers they’re often out there protecting people or working tirelessly to keep their loved ones safe and happy. Force shields that they can use to defend themselves and others seems a great fit for an ISFJ superpower.

ESFP – Probability Manipulation

I saw a post somewhere (probably Pinterest) pointing out what an under-appreciated superpower this is and I’ve been thinking about that ever since. How powerful would it be to actually be able to change the chances of something happening? ESFPs are a type that responds quickly to changes in the external world, and with this personality type they’d be able to manipulate how likely those changes are to occur.

ISFP – Animal Communication

Many ISFPs describe themselves as comfortable around animals. They’re the kind of introvert who you might find talking to a cat or dog at a party instead of hanging out with people. Turn that into a superpower, and you’ve got someone who can actually understand what the animals are saying when they talk with them.

ESTJ – Super Speed

Like so many other TJ types, ESTJs place a high value on efficiency. They like to get things done right, and to do so as quickly as possible. For ESTJs who don’t like to slow down, super speed seems to me like a perfect superpower.

ISTJ – Time Manipulation

ISTJs are often the sort of people who are extremely skilled at time management. They’re punctual, efficient, and are good at helping improve how others use their time. A superpower that lets them manipulate and control time seems like it could easily grow out of this personality trait.

ESTP — Flight

Like other SP types, ESTPs are often very physical sorts of people who respond quickly to the real-world. I wanted to give someone on this list flight (one of the most classic superpowers ever), and it seemed a good fit for ESTPs to give them a power that adds another dimension to the physical space they can work with.

ISTP – Accelerated Healing

ISTPs are already the type that makes the best action hero, so I think it makes sense to give them a superpower that lets them keep doing what they already do more efficiently. Just think what an ISTP could do if they didn’t have to worry about injuries taking weeks or months to heal.

Your Turn

What Superpower Would Your Myers-Briggs® Type Have? | LikeAnAnchor.com — Image by yabadene belkacem from Pixabay

Which superpower would you like to have? Do you think I picked a good one for your personality type?

Featured image by alan9187 from Pixabay