For nearly a month now, I have been driving rental vehicles. I was in an accident the last week of April and our car has been in the shop for all but three days since then. To start with, we were given a sedan, but it smelled like smoke, and I ask for another vehicle. We ended up with another sedan, which also smelled like smoke, but was at least tolerable. We thought we finally had the car back, but something unseen made itself known and as it turns out, it was the kind of thing that could cause the engine to overheat. Since the repair company failed to fix the car right, they are working off their guarantee and paying for the repair and the rental.
This rental, however, is a bit more rental than expected. It is a brand-new Dodge Ram 1500 four door. The truck is so big, it doesn’t even fit in the garage. It feels like I’m driving a boat. So, when we pulled up to the church this past Sunday, one of our church family members ask if they had turned me into a truck person. I laughed. My family laughed. They laughed. Anyone who knows me would have laughed. I am a lot of things, but not a truck guy. Not that I have a problem with trucks. One of my favorite vehicles was a mid-nineties S-10 that I put nearly a hundred thousand miles on, traded it in, and regretted it. I’m just not that kind of truck guy, a big truck guy. It just doesn’t suit my personality.
It got me thinking today about the idea of personality and how it relates to our discipleship journey. Each of us relates to God based on the journey we have been on. That journey, much of which I believe is defined by our personality, is different for each of us. Take prayer for instance. I ran across a page on prayer from the Methodist Church of Britain yesterday and it had a few dozen different articles on prayer including dial-a-prayer, Lectio Divina, a prayer cairn, 24/7 prayer, and fast and active prayer. All of these kinds of prayer for any number of kinds of disciples.
The truth is our discipleship journey should be leading us to a place where we reflect less of our personality and more of the person of Jesus. Not that we lose ourselves or our uniqueness but that we develop and live into the characteristics that best show the world around us the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Our goal is to live into the Jesus Way and for that to lead others to want to live into it.
When you think about your own discipleship journey, how does it reflect your personality and the person you are? Are you a Jesus person? Is your life reflecting Jesus as you grow into living the Jesus Way or is it reflecting you as you fight against ‘loosing’ yourself?
Brokenness to Wholeness 
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