INDIVIDULARITY
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The IDY - GPS
-Your gifts define what you should do.
-Your passions decide why you should do it;
-You strengths determine how you do it.
The IDY-GPS is an objective way to evaluate subjective decisions about what you’re currently doing and about the things you are considering.
You have gifts, you have passions and you have strengths. They are part of who you are. You didn’t choose them or earn them. Your GPS is based on how you are wired and what you were created to do.
You are here to do something good that will require your gifts, you passions and your strengths. Whatever you decide to do or pursue, run it through the IDY-GPS.
If what you are doing doesn't fit you, You're not doing what you were made to do
How to use the GPS: Honestly and fully Answer the questions.
What are you currently doing or preparing to do?____
(Could be: Work, school, retirement, new job, investment, ministry, military, whatever the endeavor)
What Gifts are you using?____
(A gift is any specific ability or aptitude. Scroll down for a list of the gifts.)
For instance, the ability to remember a list of numbers, is a natural gift. The ability to intrinsically understand things about God could be the spiritual gift of knowledge.
What Passions are functioning?____
(A passion is a conviction you can’t ignore)
Passions resonate with beauty. They recognize originality and respond to eternity. When you get angry or elated thinking about an idea or possibility, that is a passion-reaction.
What Strengths are you flexing?____
(A strength is what you already do well and get better as you go)
One measure of your strength is success. Are you accomplishing what you intended? If you’re working in sales; are you selling as you know you should? If you’re serving a group of people, how well would they say you’re doing?
The List Of Gifts: Natural Gifts
Hardwired natural gifts are your inherent abilities, your intellectual capacity, your intuitive savvy are not the result of your education, training or discipline. These gifts flow from the tap-root of your humanity, they drive your capacity to excel at difficult physical, mental and social tasks.
Your Personality Type
Objective and Subjective, you are a combination of both.
-Objective personalities work well when interacting with others. They draw energy and creativity from the team, they are happier and productive in groups
-Subjective personalities thrive in specialized and individualized situations. They are often task-oriented and results driven, they tend to trust their own knowledge and research and they are usually internally motivated.
“You are both, but more of one”
The Natural Gift list
- Clerical adeptness: Excel at paperwork and deal well with figures and symbols.
- Idea People: Creative and imaginative, fluent in original and adapted ideas.
- 3D thinkers: The ability to visualize all dimensions of solid objects in proportion to their intended application.
- Inductive thinking: Skill in connecting people and finding common elements among scattered facts.
- Analytical reasoning: Quickly create order from random data and ideas.
- Finger skills: Can train fingers to do complex and demanding tasks.
- Tool handling: Ability to use small tools, like tweezers to quickly accomplish intricate jobs.
- Comparison and Observation: A person who can see missing pieces in a sequence and spot subtle differences in similar objects.
- Design recall: The ability to see a pattern and reproduce it from memory.
- Tonal memory: One can remember distinct sounds and musical sequences.
- Pitch differentiation: You can tell notes apart and follow their progression.
- Rhythm: You can keep time musically and find the groove.
- Number memory: Numbers stick in your mind so you can recall and use them.
- Numerical analysis: Comprehension of numerical relationship, can solve several equations simultaneously.
- Language: Adept at learning jargon, technical speak and foreign languages.
- Artistic flair: To make inspired design and aesthetic choices that are objectively pleasing.
*This list was adapted from the book; Your Natural Gifts by Margaret E. Broadley. The list was compiled by Johnson O’Connor, the founder of the Human Engineering Laboratory.
Some online resources on the topic of Natural Gifts. The Enneagram is particularly useful if you are want to dive a bit deeper.
A List Of Spiritual Gifts:
This is by no means a complete accounting or exhaustive description of the gifts. Please use this list as a practical reference tool.
- Wisdom; To clearly connect the mind of heaven to the open hearts of God’s people so they can live skillful, meaningful and godly lives.
- Knowledge: To learn the word and truth of God from the heart of God.
- Faith: To inspire ultimate confidence and trust in the written, spoken and internal witness and word of God.
- Discernment of spirits: To know truth from error, and to distinguish the origin of expression to the body as either from God, Satan or human.
- Tongues: To pray and worship God in a language of men or angels that you never learned, and to miraculously share God’s message to people who speak other languages.
- Interpretation of tongues: To understand the spiritual meaning of an unknown tongue.
- Apostle: Someone sent by God to do specific work.
- Miracles: To display the supernatural in a way that those who witness the deeds will acknowledge God with awe, reverence and worship.
- Healing: A person God uses to dispense wholeness, healing and anointing.
- Helps: The practical ability to recognize and do what will free other believers to more effectively share their gifts.
- Administration: To guide and organize the body in the unified accomplishment of God’s goals.
- Ministry/Service: To see what will further God’s work in practical, public and support situations.
- Teaching: To instruct others in the ways of God through regular and ongoing teaching of the scriptures.
- Exhortation: To know how and when to share God’s words of comfort, encouragement, counsel and challenge.
- Giving: To cheerfully share the abundant resources God has given you; without strings.
- Leading: To effectively serve and direct the Body of Christ in a loving way that compels the people to accomplish God’s plans.
- Mercy: To care for suffering and tormented people and to share real relief that will change and help their life situation.
- Prophet: Those who express the relevant and accurate messages God has revealed for his people. Is also used to describe inspired preaching, the ability to use poetry and prose to express God’s deep truth.
- Evangelist: An effective and fruitful messenger of the gospel of the Kingdom of Christ.
- Pastors: To seek out and accept responsibility for the long term spiritual care, nurture, guidance and maturity of a group of believers.
- Celibacy: To voluntarily remain single and to control sexual impulses in order to more fully serve the Lord.
- Hospitality: To open your life to strangers and your home to people in need.
- Martyrdom: To know when it is your time to surrender your mortal life for Christ.
- Missionary: To understand the needs and adapt your life so you can effectively minister the gospel in another culture.
- Poverty: To live simply and resourcefully well beneath your means so you can spiritually bless other with the best of your material and personal gifts.
- 1 Corinthians 12:4-14
- 1 Corinthians 12:27-30
- Romans 12:6-8
- Ephesians 4:11
Some Websites that have Spiritual Gift assessments. Worth looking over.
https://spiritualgiftstest.com/
https://gifts.churchgrowth.org/spiritual-gifts-survey/
Your Passions: Visceral – Vicarious – Virteous
If you ignore your passions you will soon deplore your decisions
Here are three passion-types that are useful in defining your “inner-territory.”
- Visceral (GUT) reaction: These will happen without thinking, consideration or any effort to react on your part. (Knee-jerk passions)
- Vicarious appreciation (Wow-Factor): You see the beauty and your grasp the importance of and the purpose in what other people have to offer. This is also a clear indicator of what you consider to be valuable and worthwhile.
- Virtuous application (Fixing): You are compelled to act, you see your next move, you know that God is ready and waiting for you to do something. These are indicators of your big-picture values and your spiritual worldview.
"Forgotten experiences are worthless" Rick Warren
Visceral Reactions:
Visceral reactions: Your first reaction to any given stimulus is uniquely pure, wholly accurate and absolutely unacceptable in the sphere of choice, judgment or reason.
If you base your decisions and dealings on a first impression of anything or anyone, all you will get is the wrapper or the box they came in.
Devise a system of recall; make a note of, write down your initial visceral reactions to things. They are raw, fresh and unrepeatable events that must be preserved
For instance, the first time you consider an option it might repel you. Make note of what you didn’t like.
On the other hand the next option may be slightly different but in might be instantly compelling, if you like something that is a different indicator, make a note of what changed.
It’s all data, when you are defining your passions, everything God brings your way is important.
Don't sublimate your passions in life; Submit your passionate life to Christ
Vicarious Appreciation:
Vicarious appreciation:
Can you remember the last time you were devastated by the message in a movie only to find out the person next to you thought it was “OK.”
It touched something important, innate and intrinsic to your soul, you need to catalog what dug so deeply and moved your so completely.
What moves you about other people will help guide you toward how God wants you to help those people.
Artistic enterprises, the majesty of nature and the subtleties of life’s variations are an amazing source of direction and truth that God has placed in abundance just over your left shoulder.
If something moves you, if it connects to any part of your inner person, if a thought or a sight or a concept penetrates your skin, it is resonating with a passion-receptor God designed in you.
But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself,
Acts 20:24 KJV
Can you remember the last time you were so deeply moved by something someone else made, did or said that you had to step away and deal with what happened inside? That is vicarious passion. That is something special and specific to your character and make-up.
It might be the image of a starving child in a far country or an animal whimpering in a cage do this; recognize and remember what stirs your passion. What moves you about other people will help guide you toward how God wants you to help those people.
Virtuous Application:
Virtuous application:
When you are so deeply moved and wooed that you must do something significant to respond in worship, that is virtuous application.
This is where many faithful and caring believers step back when they know they should step up and act on their feelings.
Part of the constrictive culture of Christianity is the fear of doing something “wrong” in the name of God when in reality that by not doing something you believe you are doing wrong in the name of God.
In the late 1950’s in rural Nebraska an unmarried girl became pregnant and her condition was brought to the attention of the church deacon board. In those days the standard reaction to a unwed pregnancy with was not much different than the way Joseph acted when he found out Mary was pregnant; they needed to do something with her to minimize any scandal or embarrassment.
Before anything was said or proposed one member of the board, a farmer, stood and took a hundred dollar bill from his wallet. As he set the C-note on the conference table he said, “Whatever you decide to do make sure this gets to the girl,” then he left the meeting.
That was a lot of money, it was impulsive and foolish, it was done without discussion or direction but without a doubt it was virtuous and caring.
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
1Peter 4:8 ESV
Doing right from the heart without waiting for permission or validation is what vitreous passion will always propose. When it is an act of faith and an expression of direct and divine worship, do it.
I listed some links and a video that discuss the fundamentals for Passions. The TED talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on “Flow” was very important in my development of the passion piece of the GPS.
Human trait that leads to happiness Prager U
"The most direct way to identify your strengths is always to pay attention to how specific activities make your feel. No one can do this better than you.” Marcus Buckingham
Strengths:
Add – Advance – Abandon
Add: Define something new you can do well
Advance: Develop something you are currently doing well.
Abandon: Discontinue what you can’t, don’t, won’t and aren’t doing well.
A strength is something you do well and get better at it the longer you do it. Like a muscle that is properly exercised your natural strengths will grow along with your skills and efficiency.
A good rule of thumb for defining your strength is; where have you been successful? Success includes things financial, social, creative and individual. Success is when the outcome exceeds the outlay
It is crucial that you don’t confuse things you hoped would go well with things that actually went well.
One of the most difficult and important GPS decisions to make is what to ADD, ADVANCE or ABANDON.
Marcus Buckingham the author of, NOW GO PUT YOUR STRENGTHS TO WORK said it like this, “you have great passion for things that will never earn you a living, they’re called hobbies.”
Strength is the ability to complete the important things and the sense ability to resist those competing things.
What do other people see as your strengths? Ask some friends or colleagues for their opinion, a more objective perspective can help you recognize strengths you might not have considered. Strengths make you feel strong, capable and accomplished.
Strengths Expose And Contain Your Weaknesses
As you focus on your strengths you will be confronted by your weaknesses.
It’s like the panic felt by the great maestro as he is striding from the wings of the stage to the applause of his patrons when he realizes he doesn’t have his baton or master score. When he finally arrives at the podium he finds them both, his assistant had noticed the oversight.
You cannot delegate your weakness away to someone else anymore than you can transfer your strengths to a weaker person. The maestro used his gifts, tapped his passion and developed his strengths.
The assistant had the strength to overlook the weakness of his boss, the gift to organize and attend to the details and the passion to quietly do what only he could do.
Some Links To Further Explore Strengths: There is a great deal of info online. As you look remember that your Strengths must also flow and fit with your passions and gifts.
-Strength Finder, Free version:
