The Wild ARE

Yesterday’s post is crucial to beginning the process of finding your Spiritual ARE.

Today I want to tie up a loose end by looking at one of the biggest hindrances to finding your Spiritual ARE: thinking it is the same as your Physical ARE. Whenever you take a personality profile, you are really determining your Physical ARE…that is, how you actually operate.

Besides, these personality profiles are almost “racist”. They claim to describe the entire population of the world with (for example) 16 descriptions. Notice, most people find these profiles helpful for a month or two. Then they move on because they realize two things:

1. They are more unique than what they read
2. The description doesn’t resonate over the Long Term with who God made them to BE

Some people think these superficial descriptions are how God WANTS you to operate. For example, there is a pretty famous book that makes this claim: “Wild At Heart” by John Eldredge.

John Eldredge has identified the Physical ARE for every male and it has three parts:
1. A battle to fight
2. An adventure to live
3. A beauty to rescue

At first glance these look like DO’s. However, the author says the ARE is the DESIRE to DO these things.

Every “guy flick” has these three elements for a reason. These are the three things that appeal to the flesh of every male. God must have certainly made us this way. But does this mean God wants us to operate in this Physical ARE? Does God want us to act out these desires?

If my purpose was to be made for earth, then I would agree with this. However, I’m made for eternity in heaven. Ultimately, I won't have the desire to DO any of these things for eternity.

God made me for a purpose that is NOT the result of my Physical ARE.

If this is something God put into me, yet is something that will not be retained for eternity, it must be something that needs to be removed.

In fact, I could say that in order to prove to God I want to be in heaven for eternity, I need to turn from my fleshly ARE and pursue the ARE God intended for me.

Ultimately, we are supposed to be operating in grace and allowing God to direct our actions (DO), not our flesh (Physical ARE).

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