Merciful Wisdom

1 February, 20207 February, 2020Marissa

In his epistle, James describes “the wisdom that is from above” as “first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17, WEB). We’ve looked at those first four traits in previous posts, and now we come to study merciful wisdom.

Mercy, loving kindness, and compassion are key traits of our God, who is the source of true wisdom. (Language note: the Hebrew and Greek words translated “mercy” are also frequently translated as “kindness,” or more rarely a related word such as compassion or goodness.) If we want to be like God, then we also need to learn kindness and mercy. And we must use them wisely, as He does.

Consider the Loving Kindness

The end of Psalm 107 says, “Whoever is wise will pay attention to these things. They will consider the loving kindnesses of Yahweh” (Ps. 107; 43, WEB). Since we’re studying wisdom and loving kindness/mercy, this psalm seems like a good place to start.

Psalm 107 begins, “Give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good, for his loving kindness endures forever.” A similar phrase echoes throughout the Psalm: “Let them praise Yahweh for his loving kindness, for his wonderful deeds to the children of men!” (Ps. 107:8, 15, 21, 31). In between, we’re given reasons for this praise and illustrations of the Lord’s loving kindness. Read more →

10 Things That INTJs Find Extremely Annoying

28 January, 202027 January, 2020Marissa

Ever wonder why something you thought was perfectly innocent annoyed your INTJ friend? Or why you, as an INTJ, find certain things that other people don’t worry about the most vexing part of your day?

Our Myers-Briggs® personality types describe how our minds work. It’s a description of the mental processes that we use most comfortably, which come together in unique ways for each personality type. Because of the special way our brains are “hardwired” to function, each type has different things that they typically find very annoying.

Of course, even if a group of people share a personality type there are going to be plenty of individual differences between them. Some INTJs might, for example, enjoy being hugged or not find emotional conversations all that annoying. In general, though, most INTJs will find the 10 things on this list extremely vexing.

10 Things That INTJs Find Extremely Annoying | LikeAnAnchor.com — Photo credit: Pexels via Pixabay

1) Anything Illogical

INTJs approach the outer world using a mental function called Extroverted Thinking. It’s a highly logical way of making decisions and evaluating information. If something doesn’t make sense, can’t be measured, doesn’t work, and isn’t based on impersonal criteria then it’s clearly not the right choice. But other people don’t always see things that way, which can be frustrating and annoying for INTJs.

2) Inefficiency They Can’t Fix

INTJs aren’t just interested in arriving at decisions that make sense. They also want to come up with solutions that work long-term. Something that isn’t efficient irritates them as being out of place and ineffective. This annoyance can make them very productive when they’re driven to streamline processes and bring order to chaos. If for some reason they can’t fix the inefficiency, however, it becomes a continual source of annoyance. Read more →

Reasonable Wisdom

25 January, 202024 January, 2020Marissa

What’s the difference between godly wisdom and worldly wisdom? James gives us part of the answer when he describes “the wisdom from above” as “first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without hypocrisy, and without partiality” (James 3:17, WEB).

We’ve been studying through this list for several weeks. Now James complicates things by using a word found nowhere else in scripture to describe wisdom as “reasonable.” Alternate translations include “easy to be entreated” (KJV), “obedient” (LEB), “wiling to yield” (NKJV), “open to reason” (TLV and CJB), and “submissive” (NIV). This makes it a bit difficult to see what else God has to say about reasonable, obedient wisdom but we’re going to dig in and do our best to study it anyway.

Persuaded of Good Things

The word we’re discussing here is eupeithes (Strong’s number G2138). It’s a compound word formed by putting eu (G2095) in front of peitho (G3982). Eu is extensively used as a prefix in compound verbs so it’s no surprise to find it here. It means “well” and “good.”

Peitho’s basic meaning is “to persuade, particularly to move or effect by kind words or motives” (Zodhiates’s Complete WordStudy Dictionary: New Testament). It also means to be convinced or persuaded to believe something is true. This word can be used in a positive sense (such as Paul persuading people that Jesus is the Christ in Acts 28:23) or in a negative sense (such as when certain people persuaded the multitudes to stone Paul in Acts 14:19).

But, beloved, we are persuaded of better things for you, and things that accompany salvation, even though we speak like this. (Heb. 6:9, WEB)

The wise aren’t persuadable to just any idea, though. Wisdom is “reasonable;” eu + peitho — good persuasion. The wise are not skeptical or suspicious, for they are obedient and easy entreated. But they’re not easily persuaded by deceivers or convinced that evil is truth. Read more →

5 Tips for Dealing With Your Emotions in a Healthy Way Instead of Bottling Them Up

21 January, 202022 January, 2020Marissa

What do you do with your emotions? A lot of us bottle them up and pretend they don’t exist because we’ve grown up thinking it’s not okay to express problematic feelings like anger, or that strong people don’t cry, or that being too happy makes you look ridiculous. There are also people who swing to the opposite extreme and give all their emotions free reign, but that’s a different issue than the one we’re talking about in this article.

Emotions are a complicated subject. We all have them, but what are they really? And what’s the best way to deal with them? Those are questions typically answered by trial and error or by whatever messages regarding emotion we were targeted with as children. As such, we can make several mistakes when approaching emotions. We might see them as something that’s pesky and distracting rather than a core part of being human. We could make the mistake of thinking everyone has (or should have) the same emotional temperament as us. Or we might decide all emotions are negative and it’s better to hide our feelings than to process them.

As someone struggling with anxiety and depression, I often find myself stuck in negative emotions instead of working through them. In many cases, I also react to situations that could be positive in a negative way. But even people with great mental health can still struggle to process emotions effectively. And the more we bottle up emotions (particularly negative ones) without processing them, the greater the risk that we’ll reach a point where they’re released by something like a burst of out-of-place anger or by collapsing into tears for no apparent reason. So how do we avoid such problems and learn to process our emotions in a healthy way? Read more →

Gentle Wisdom

18 January, 202016 January, 2020Marissa

The Bible speaks of two different kinds of wisdom, one that is of the world and one that is of God. In his epistle, James gives us a list of characteristics that describe “the wisdom that is from above.” he says that it “is first pure, then peaceful,” two characteristics we talked about in posts titled “Pure Wisdom” and “Peaceful Wisdom.”The next characteristic on this list is “gentle.”

Intelligent people often have a reputation for having a cutting wit and a low tolerance for those who don’t see things their way. Wisdom doesn’t act like that. It is gentle in a fitting, proper, and unassertive way

Defining gentleness

There are several Greek words you can translate as “gentleness.” The one James uses is epieikes. This word has to do with legal fairness and indicates moderation, clemency, and equable dealings with others. It involves being “lenient, yielding, and unassertive.” The closely related word epieikei expresses “the virtue that rectifies and redresses the severity of a sentence.”

This type of gentleness is about actively choosing equity and justice in our dealings with others, even when you could assert your legal rights against them. Gentleness keeps us from “the danger that ever lurks upon the assertion of legal rights lest they be pushed to immoral limits” (Spiros’ Zodhiates’ The Complete WordStudy Dictonary: New Testament, entries 1932 and 1933). Read more →

How Do You Hold on to Hope When You’re Fighting Anxiety and Depression?

14 January, 202013 January, 2020Marissa

Anxiety and depression are two of the most common mental illnesses, and they often occur together. Just because its relatively common, though, doesn’t make dealing with both feel any less weird. Exhibit A, this image I ran across on Pinterest:

It’s overly simplified, of course, to say “depression is when you don’t really care about anything” and “anxiety is when you care too much about everything.” Still, these comments capture part of how strange it feels to simultaneously (or alternately) deal with depression and anxiety. “Having both is staying in bed because you don’t want to go to school and then panicking because you don’t want to fail. Having both is wanting to go see your friends so you don’t lose them all, then staying home in bed because you don’t want to make the effort.”

Anxiety and depression are going to show up a bit different for everyone who struggles with them, but for me it’s like one day I’m on-edge, jittery, and so distracted by my inner anxiety monologue that I struggle to remember how things actually happened. Then the next day I feel like a weight’s pressing down on me snuffing out all motivation and hope. And some days, the smothering feeling is there but I’m also anxious about stuff I should care about and there’s this weird fight going on in my head. It’s exhausting.

Holding on to hope isn’t easy when you’re fighting a struggle inside your mind that tells you the worst could happen and there’s no point in trying to do anything about it. But we’re also not helpless victims of our own minds. We can change the patterns of our thoughts. We can choose to hold on to hope even when there seems no reason for it, and the easiest/best way to do this is with the Lord’s help.