Like An Anchor

Am I Using God’s Truth To Hurt Others Or To Help Them?

5 January, 2019

Last week we talked about the fact that speaking the truth in today’s culture can offend people. That’s something we were warned about in scripture — the world will hate us like they hated Jesus and preaching the cross is “foolishness to those who are perishing” (John 15:18-22; 1 Cor. 1:18).

But what about in the church? God’s intention is that there be peace and unity in His church, but we’ve all experienced times when that’s not the case. People in the church fight and bicker. They offend each other. They split church groups. And most would tell you that they’re speaking the truth and the other person is the one at fault.

We always have a responsibility to follow God faithfully and to speak about His truth. And we must always try to do that in a way that points people toward Him instead of pushing them away. However, we won’t always be able to present the gospel in a way that appeals to the world. Jesus preached truth perfectly and people still turned away (John 6:64-67). Within the church, though, we should be able to talk about the truth without hurting each other. So how do we do that?

You’re Not Here For You

Near the middle of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul addresses the question of how the people in God’s church should relate to one another. He talks about different roles Christ set up in the church (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers) and why (“for the perfection of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ”). The goal in all this is to “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.” We’re not to be immature Christians any more, easily swayed by new doctrines or tricky, wicked men (Eph. 4:11-14). (more…)
2018 On My Blog: Top 10 Lists

2 January, 2019
Once again the Gregorian calendar advances by one year. Sticking with tradition, I spent New Year’s Eve with my cousin and sister and now I’m using my first post of the new year to share my blogging highlights from last year.

This has been a big year for my blog. It’s got a name now, for one thing, since we went from marissabaker.wordpress.com to LikeAnAnchor.com. The number of visitors is holding pretty steady from last year, though it did go up a little.

One of my big goals for this upcoming year is to continue growing my blog, but that’s a subject for another post. Today’s post is about looking back on the most popular posts of 2018 and celebrating all you lovely people who’ve been reading my work.

Posts With The Most Traffic

All of the top posts this year are about INFJs, which isn’t really surprising. I was kinda surprised that my ENFP-INFJ relationships post is the most popular of all my posts, though. I guess I’ll put that on the list of good things that came out of my (now ended) relationship.
1. Dating Your Mirror: ENFP and INFJ Relationships (published 11/11/2017)
2. INFJ User Guide (published 6/20/2016)
3. Religion and the INFJ (published 10/17/2016)
4. Want To Date An INFJ? Here’s 15 Things We’d Like You To Know (published 9/18/2018)
5. The Vanishing INFJ (published 11/28/2016)
6. INFJ Dark Side (published 3/31/2014)
7. The INFJ Stare (published 8/5/2013)
8. Living With INFJ Guilt And Overcoming Cycles of Shame (published 11/13/2018)
9. The Single INFJ (published 4/18/2018)
10. How To Be Friends With An INFJ (published 10/13/2014)
Top 2018 Posts

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An Introvert’s Guide To Hosting A New Year’s Party

30 December, 2018

I always spend New Year’s Eve with my sister and cousin. There’s just the three of us, but we call it a party anyway. The tradition started with my cousin’s family hosting much larger New Year’s parties, and then after those went away the three of us just kept spending New Years together.

Though one of us (my cousin) is an ENFP, our New Year’s parties are very much something you could describe as introverted. There’s a small number of people and the party activities are generally relaxed, stay-at-home sorts of things. And because our sort of New Year’s party is clearly the best kind there is, I’ve made this helpful little guide to help other introverts (and those who like “introverted” parties) to host their own.

How To Host An Introverted New Year’s Party

Step One: Decline all invitations to traditional New Year’s parties.

Step Two: Find a small number of people you enjoy being around and who will get along well with each other. (more…)
The Fear of Causing Offense

29 December, 2018

How did offending someone suddenly become a cardinal sin? People today think they have a right to never be offended, and when they do get offended they also feel offended that you dared offend them.

Google defines offended as “resentful or annoyed, typically as a result of a perceived insult.” When you offend someone, you cause them “to feel upset, annoyed, or resentful.” Offense is “annoyance or resentment brought about by a perceived insult or disregard for oneself or one’s standards or principles.”

Just a little bit of thought on this subject should make it obvious that offenses can happen any time people disagree, which actually happens quite a bit. Our standards, principles, and ideas are not identical and when that’s the case it’s easy to perceive an insult. Plus, even when we don’t disagree, miscommunication can cause resentment and annoyance. It’s impossible to live in a society of humans without being offended, which naturally leads to a question of why certain people’s “right” to not be offended should make it okay for them to offend others.

But what does this have to do with Christians? Surely this is more of a social-political debate for people like Jordan Peterson and Cathy Newman. Isn’t our job as Christians to just love people in an inoffensive way? I’m actually going to argue that it is not.

Is It Sinful To Cause Offense?

There’s a passage in the gospels that, when you read it in the King James version, seems to support the idea that causing offense is a sinful thing to do. In Matthew’s gospel it reads like this:

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! (Matt. 18:6-7, KJV)

This isn’t the best translation, though, at least for modern times. The Greek word has little to do with an annoyance or resentment caused by insult. Instead, it matches a definition for offense which is fast passing out of use in English — “a breach of a law or rule; an illegal act.”

When Jesus says woe to those who cause offense, He’s speaking of those who cause others to offend against God. (more…)
Replacing Anxiety With Power, Love, and A Sound Mind

22 December, 2018

There’s a verse that I’ve found myself praying when I struggle with anxiety, which has been pretty often for the past couple weeks. It comes from Paul’s second letter to Timothy in which he assured the young man that “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7, KJV).

I don’t want to speak for everyone’s anxiety, but for me at least I do feel like it’s often tied to a lack or imbalance of the three things mentioned here. I’m scared when I feel I have no power or others have too much power. My anxiety spikes when I’m not felling loved and looked out for, as well as when I spend too much time turned in on myself instead of actively loving others. And my mind seems unsound or undisciplined when it spins elaborate worst-case scenarios to worry about, or tells me things like “you’re broken and worthless.”

This verse says that I don’t have to stay stuck there. When we have God’s spirit in us, we have access to a part of Him that can replace fear with power, love, and sound mindedness.

Power

There are a few different Greek words that could be translated “power.” The one here is dunamis. Like other words that come from duna it carries “the meaning of being able, capable.” Specifically, dunamis speaks of inherent strength and power (Zodhiates’ and Thayre’s dictionaries, entry on G1411).

We see this power demonstrated when Jesus performed miracles. “All the multitude sought to touch him, for power came out of him and healed them all” (Luke 6:19, WEB). When we’re given God’s holy spirit, this same sort of power that resides in God is put inside of us (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8). The power doesn’t belong to us (Acts 3:12; 2 Cor. 4:7), but it is available to us.

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Can INFJs Be Intimidating?

17 December, 2018

The short answer to the question, “Can INFJs be intimidating?” is “yes.”

Of course, this partly depends on the specific INFJ and on what someone finds intimidating. Some people might be intimidated by the way INFJs people-watch. Others might find the way our minds work intimidating, or be overawed by our instinct for figuring others out.

Being intimidating can be a useful thing in some contexts. Unfortunately for INFJs, it seems like we come across as intimidating when we don’t mean to more often than when we do. INFJs are generally peaceful folk who don’t like confrontation and aren’t trying to intimidate anyone (even though the whole “good little INFJ” thing is mostly a myth).

Here are three ways that INFJs can come across as intimidating when they don’t mean to. If you’re curious about what INFJs are like when they are trying to be intimidating, click to check out my post “INFJ Dark Side.”

We Think Differently

Some people can find the way that INFJs think intimidating. We tend to be deep-thinkers and, in our own way, we’re pretty intense. Also, INFJs are a curious mixture of seemingly contradictory things and we’re hard for people to put into neat boxes. Some people find this fascinating, but others find it off-putting.

When I was finishing up my 4-year degree in college a guy at church asked me about my thesis project. So of course I waxed eloquent about how 18th century female writers used Biblical gender roles to present a solution to a “gender crisis” of their day. Not long after, this man described me as intimidating in a conversation with my father. He said that I was too well-educated and too deep thinking for any man in our church to want to marry me. (more…)