WATER OF LIFE

New Preface to Where in the World Do I Belong??

I flipped through last month’s issue of the magazine Psychology Today; there were articles and editorials on a myriad of psychological problems yet none of the psychological explanations and answers contain any spiritual solutions (or mention of Christianity or even God). At the last Association of Psychological Type (APT) conference only 6% of the participants reported a primary interest area of Religion and Spirituality (as opposed to 41% interest in Management and Organizational Development). Several members of the Honolulu MBTI group are agnostic or atheist. It is often said that people get into the field of psychology and personality type to solve their own issues; I speculate they also use it as a substitute for spirituality and spiritual answers. I wrote Where in the World Do I Belong?? in 2006 and added this Preface in 2007. I don’t talk about God in this book but I feel it is extremely important for anyone interested in the personality type and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

The MBTI was originally based on Carl Jung’s theories. My MBTI qualifying course instructor told us, “Jung is not God; he is a man with a theory.” She also said type is the energy under the behavior. Anyone can do the behavior, but your type determines whether you use more or less energy to do the behavior. I take this one step farther by saying the spirit is the energy under the type. People talk about functions/mental processes or personality type in terms of it being your true source and flow of energy. That is deceiving because the real source of energy for the soul comes from the spirit and whatever your spirit is grounded in. If your centered on self, your spirit will be powered by self-will power, but if it is centered on God, your spirit will be filled with God’s spirit and the infinite power and will of God.

David Tacey wrote in his book, How to Read Jung (2006), that Jung believed in God and his father was a Christian minister. However, Jung believed that Christianity wasn’t the only “sacred force”. He also believed the virgin birth and resurrection are metaphors or symbols instead of actual historical fact. Based on the miracles I have experienced in my own life, I believe in the infinite power of God and his ability to perform the miracles written in the Bible. To explain Jung’s ideas, Tacey uses the metaphor of religion as the blazing light of the sun and without it we are just using the stars for direction: that is to say our dreams, intuition, and looking for signs in everyday life. I was saved, or came to accept Christ, as a teenager but hadn’t surrendered to God. I spent many years on a self-powered search for my calling, relying heavily on intuition, signs, dreams and the insights of others; I called upon God for guidance and help frequently but it was a long journey guided only by distant twinkles of light. According to Tacey, Jung believed, “A relationship with the sacred provides meaning and direction to the soul.” Jung seems to suggest a mix of self and a “relationship” with God instead of accepting the power of God as the sole source of spiritual power. This is where Jung missed the boat: a relationship with “sacred forces” is still an individual being guided only by starlight.

When I read the book The Handbook to Happiness (1971) by Dr. Charles Solomon, it was like a hot, molten, shimmering sun breaking over the horizon in my weary, tear-filled eyes. Solomon explains that carnal Christians have accepted Christ, yet not completely surrendered to Christ. The problem with Jung’s theory is that the self is still at the center of our life even when we have a “relationship” with God. According to Solomon, “the soul, in and of itself, is neutral. Whatever is placed at the center, Something or Christ, becomes the driving force that empowers the soul, determining its attitudes and actions and the ultimate worth of that which results.” That “Something” can be self or other people we think make us happy (spouse, children, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc.), success, work, sex, drugs, etc. “Self in the center of the life means we are in control or, at least, are trying to be.”

Solomon explains man as a tri-unity of body, soul and spirit. What’s confusing about Jung is that he mixes soul and spirit. Also, his archetypes seem to lie somewhere on the border between soul and spirit. According to Solomon the body is physiological (world-conscious), the soul is psychological (self-conscious), and the spirit is spiritual (God-conscious). The spirit is what empowers the soul and the soul is what empowers the body. The soul is the container for mind, emotions, and will; and the center of our psychology, abnormal psychology, and personality type (Jung, Myers-Briggs, etc.). Many psychologists, and personality type professionals fail to recognize the most important and most powerful part of the tri-unity of man: The Spirit! It powers the soul and everything else. Solomon rightly states that through surrender to Christ an individual’s abnormal psychology and behaviors dissipate. Tacey reports that Jung also believed in the “spiritual dimension of healing.” “Jung believed that meaning and ’spirit’ can heal psychic illness and even bring relief to physical disease.” Solomon explains in detail the problem with modern day psychology and counseling: an attempt to fix self and various psychological and physiological symptoms instead of addressing the underlying spiritual emptiness.

“Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in” —C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity 1952). I poured over self-help books (on addiction, happiness, self actualization, etc.) for answers to the emptiness inside that manifested itself in my work and relationships. I spent seven years in counseling believing that psychology must have the answers, but I never felt any relief. I believed that if I found work I was passionate about, it would stop the inner voices, negative thoughts, confusing emotions and desires to escape (through porn, sex, food, or whatever). I read Po Bronson’s bestselling self-help book, What Should I Do With My Life? (2003); it explored the various ways people find their calling and what they decide to dedicate their life to. Bronson has a wonderful book filled with insight and personal stories but is missing the spiritual component just like the Psychology Today magazine, the MBTI type community, and even the small Honolulu MBTI group. I believe the emptiness (of many of the people profiled in Bronson’s book) is not in their vocation but is a calling towards God; and for those that already know God it’s a calling towards complete surrender and complete faith.

Jung believed a relationship with God shouldn’t be controlled by or depend on religious institutions. However, trying to have a relationship with God outside the body of the church is, according to Pastor Mike Kai of Hope Chapel West Oahu, like taking a lung out of the body: the body survives (although struggles) and the lung soon withers away and dies. Spritual victory is through complete surrender to Christ. Going to church and reading the bible keeps you on the path of victory. I avoided Christians because the majority didn’t seem to be living victorious lives. I had long rejected religion, yet not God, because I felt the church was a house of hypocrites. However, even this was a failure, because “Anyone who denies the Son doesn’t have the Father” (1 John 2:23 NLT)—you can’t have God without accepting Christ and thus Christianity.

One black preacher, from Cote Devoir (Africa), explained that the church was not a house of saints but more like a hospital for the sick. Christians who are saved but not surrendered are the same as sinners who are not in the church: they are operating their lives from their own self will power instead of surrendering to complete faith in God, allowing Him to work in and through them to achieve his will in their lives (this of course is a big step and is made much easier when we are at the end of our rope and completely given up on trying to make things work on our own). “It is estimated that 90 percent of all Christians never experience the abundant or victorious life, so they do not understand how deep psychological problems can be resolved by letting the Lord Jesus Christ manifest his life in them, rather than resorting to human therapy” (The Handbook to Happiness).

In my years of searching I wandered across diverse career paths and studied personality type looking for an answer to the calling in my soul. Yet, I didn’t realize that the human spirit powers the soul. Whatever you fill your spirit with will create outcomes in the way you express your soul to the world. My spirit was empty I frequently prayed to God asking for his help and his will for my life but I rejected the Bible, the church, and Christians. Eventually, my marriage and finances came to a crisis; I had tried everything possible and there was nothing left I could do, then my mother gave me the gift of the book: Handbook to Happiness: A Biblical Guide to Victorious Living. I frowned at the overt Christian nature of it, but one night I couldn’t sleep because of the emotional pain in my life so I picked up Solomon’s book and began read it all night. The tears streamed down my face as I saw myself in the book: my misconception of psychology having the answers, my struggle with self control of my addictive behaviors, worries, fears, obsessive thoughts but most of all my complete misunderstanding of Christianity.

I had accepted Christ when I was 13 but I didn’t find spiritual victory in Christ until 25 years later. Why? I hadn’t been to church in 23 years; during that time I went to college, traveled and lived abroad, had a career in technology and later became an author and publisher. During high school, I spent a couple years in A.A. trying to accept to the will of God using the twelve steps program. A.A. taught me how to self-define my own religion, that led to my rejection of Christianity. Once again, you can’t have God without accepting Christ. Twelve step programs are half-truths that deceive us and keep us away from the truth of Christ.

Psychology is the same, it can be used to understand people but only spiritual-therapy through victory in Christ has true healing and the answer to all our problems. I had believed in God but only saw Him as an external force to be negotiated with and prayed to. I never understood the concept of complete surrender of control of my life to Him, allowing Him to work through me instead of trying to do what I thought he wanted me to do. The center of my life had been on self, and later my marriage and my wife—all of these being imperfect and inevitably failing me, then I put God in the center of my life and filled my spirit with the Holy Spirit through surrender to Jesus Christ. Addictions, obsessive relationships, fears, anxiety, anger, suspicion, were all overcome through Christ. The inner voices were calmed, and the desperate searching alternating with various escapes (work, porn, sex, food, etc.) ended. Psychological and physiological problems are healed through complete surrender to and faith in Christ.

Without a spiritual foundation centered on God we are more often acting or working through the dark-side of our personality type and archetypes. I suggest that before you apply personality type theories in your life, you first understand your spiritual power source. If you base your spiritual power on anything other than complete surrender to and faith in God, your struggles with personal problems, marital problems, occupational problems, and other relationships will not improve because you are only treating the psychological or physiological symptoms instead of the underlying spiritual emptiness. I urge you to read Dr. Solomon’s book, The Handbook to Happiness, especially if you are interested in psychology, counseling or even Christian counseling. Solomon explains how all these therapies are ineffective because they strengthen a reliance on self instead of on God: a life centered on God, surrendered to Christ, and complete faith in the infinitely powerful grace of God. Basically, we dedicate our spirit to Christ and our sins are forgiven, and when we surrender our life to Christ our mind is renewed. It is through this renewal of the mind that mental and physical healing occurs. Jung believed that a relationship with God made this mental and physical healing possible, but he missed the point that only total surrender to and complete faith in God makes that possible.

Charles Trumbull discovered this truth in 1910 and wrote it in his book Victory in Christ (1959): “It meant I need never again ask Him to help me as though He were apart from me. Instead I could ask Him simply to do His work and His will in me and with me and through me. My body was His, my mind His, my will His, my spirit His. And not merely His, but literally a part of Him.” I highly recommend this little 90-page book as a great introduction to this spiritual life change and especially to Christians who still feel something is missing in their walk with Christ.