Now you're glorifying the physical instead of the. No, you're taking care of the whole person that God created you to be.
Yeah.
and likewise with the disc assessment and the personal development and personal coaching and those kinds of things. Professional skill sets that we go developy. Nobody gets mad when you tell them you're going to college. Right. Re you're going to college to learn some stuff.
Hello again and welcome to Trim the Wick podcast. I'm Dan.
And I'm Becky.
And we are back with you again on a beautiful, beautiful sunny Florr today.
It's gorgeous out here today. We're actually sitting outside at a picnic table today.
Yes, it is amazing. And so you're gonna hear some things in the background. Probably some cars and dogs and lions and tigers and bears. Oh, myh. Yeah. So, just so you know, there'll be some noise in the background. Cause we're out at a park. Just. We couldn't stay inside anymore.
Nope.
It was just gorgeous. This week we arenna dive into something we're gonna build on last week and last week we discussed your disc assessment.
Right.
And what disc was. And if you listened to last week's episode, we, thank you for listing to last week's episode. But you got to know about what disc is and we kind of broke it down as we went through the explanation of Becky's assessment. So if you want to know more, whatever, please go back and listen to that one. It's a
great, great podcast. But, basically DIS is a personality assessment, behavior analysis assessment, that kind of shows your likes, dislikes when it comes to your communication style, your leadership style, your ideal, work environment, things like that. And so that's kind of what launched this, was that you took the assessment.
Right.
And we went over that last week and this week we want to talk about the kind of. The whole thing of should we as Christians be focusing on a personality assessment? Should we be focusing on ourselves? Should we. Is this something that we as Christians should be doing?
Right. Because that disc test is supposed to be a jumping off place that leads somewhere that leads you into a personal development plan that helps you to start thinking about the places that you can grow. Yeah. And how to grow in those places. And it's very easy as a believer to either come from a background or to kind of start questioning and thinking this is emotional growth, or this is professional growth,
or this is relationship growth. is this in conflict with spiritual growth and spiritual principles?
Yeah.
And so we're gonna Tackle kind of that myth today, that skepticism, and talk about it from a believer's point of view.
All right, so let's hang on here. Let's get going. So one of the things that in doing this, the question gets brought up all the time, like, you know, are we supposed to spend time focusing on ourselves when it comes to our behavior and all this stuff, is that supposed to be something that we're supposed to spend time, you know, doing and building ourselves up and
bettering ourselves? This personal development, this personal making yourself better of understanding who you are at the core so that you can then improve on yourself? I mean, is that something that as Christians we should even be looking at and doing?
Right. And that's hotly debated. You've seen you over the last. Gosh, since we were kids, since the 80s, there's been kind of this combativeness between the church teaching spiritual principles.
Right.
And then looking at, other areas of growth, professional development or psychology, or the dreaded self help label.
Right.
that those are secular psychology and are in competition with and opposed to what God wants of us as believers. And so we're kind of going to tackle that myth a little bit today.
Yeah.
Because there's no point in doing a disc test if you don't think it's. It meshes with your faith life. Right, Exactly.
Well, and here's the thing, is that, you know, the church so many times is very reactionary to the culture. you know, church to me should be setting culture. believers should be the ones that are setting the culture. The ones that should be out in front, you know, the people who are our politicians and our leaders, our music leaders. Those should be believers to me, the ones that are leading the way. But so many times the church is taking direction from other people.
Right.
And they are reacting to what the world is doing.
Right.
And I remember, you know, back in the 80s, the whole, Star Night Lives skit. You know, Frank.
Dana Carvey.
Well, yeah, it was Dana Carve. Well, no, but it was, Franken, whatever his name was. Alan. Ah, Adam Allen. Something fragt.
Hi. We're aging and our brains are going, man.
But Al. Al Franken.
There we go.
And so, But Al Franken used to do the skit where he would look in the mirror and it was that, you are good enough. You can do this. You are the one. You are the smart one. You are the. And, I can remember how the church was reacting to that, going, wait a second, you know, you aren't good enough. Because that's why you need Jesus. That's why you need God. Cause you can't do these things. You can't.
Because apart from Christ, we can do nothing.
Right? And so it's a pendulum thing that swings so far that what happens is that there was this thing of now I have to mask myself. I have to act like somebody I'm not. I have to have false humility. I have to.
And these are traps that we've worked hard to grow out of over the years.
Well, yeah, and this is something that was kind of just impressed on in the church for people to do. And I'm glad to see that there is a coming back where the idea is not that. That you're everything in a cup of soup or whatever.
Bag of chips.
Bag of chips, whatever the phrase is. but that, yes, you need Christ. Yes, you need the Father. Yes, you need to be grateful. You need to have thanksgiving. You need to acknowledge the Creator that created you.
Right? That apart from him, you are nothing but in Him.
But in Him. And he has created you to be these things.
Right? And then beginning to. You referenced that false humility. It was like we've been under some teaching at different times in our lives where, okay, you acknowledge that apart from him you are nothing. But you never get the flip side of that. That, oh, but I am in him now.
Yeah.
And so he calls me. He now calls me a saint.
Right.
He calls me redeemed. He calls me forgiven. He calls me completed. When the Father looks at me, he sees who I am. Completed in the sun. And. Exactly. You never got that side. And so walking in, you know, when you started to feel good about yourself and go, wow, I really. I am good at something, or I did something, or I'm capable of this. you were very quickly told that that was prideful.
Well, there's the. Ah.
And so you end up with this. Okay, so, like, what benefit is it to me to even walk in faith?
Exactly. and there is a squashing. Yeah, there is a squashing. Because you don't. It makes it hard to really fulfill what God's called you to be, you.
Know, and because you're not allowed to.
Value exactly what God's called you, it, And you're gonna learn from me, folks, that I am horrible with names. I cannot remember names. The little, the guy who was Chariot's a fire.
Oh, Eric.
Little Eric Little. See ye. I had half of it there. But you know, his famous quote is the God made meast.
God made me fast.
God made Me fast and I feel.
His pleasure when I run.
Yeah. And I think that is. That's been missed a lot in the Christian church. And one of the things that I am excited about is helping people fulfill what God has called them to be. Helping people see who they are, what God created, and then doing the, okay.
God made me this and it's time, and I feel his pleasure when I.
Walk in it, when I do X yz. You know, and that's why, the disc assessment, I think is really important and understanding these things about yourself and how you can communicate.
Yeah.
not just talking, not just making words to fill a void, but to actually be able to talk in a way that communicates to other people, to where other people connect with what you're saying and then.
And where you grow together.
And you can grow together, but you also then can start letting people into what you need. You can also now start seeing better what you need because you can better.
Express that without shame and condemnation.
Right.
Of. Yeah. And, you know, it is. It's one of those things we were talking a little bit ago that that disc assessment becomes a jumping off place then to personal growth. And that's where you kind of get into that miry clay stuff in Christian circles. There is even in Christian bookstores there's a whole, section usually dedicated to
self help. Right. And I do have an issue with self help in the pull yourself up by your bootstraps and, you know, you can just chop off parts of who you are and deny parts. But simultaneously, we do know that our spiritual growth is intrinsically tied, with all the other areas of growth in us as a person. Our emotional growth, our physical growth, our professional training and development, all of those areas of personal development that the disc test does begin
to address. Those things are part of our spiritual life because we are inherently spiritual people.
Yeah.
And so it's not this thing of, growing in those areas is somehow separate from our spiritual growth. It just needs to be founded on the spiritual.
Right. Understanding how God created you.
Y.
So that you can then take that and expand it, build on it and not be ashamed of it and not be able, you know, and not go, well, I'm really good at this. And that's okay. Like I'IT'S okay for me to be really good at something.
Yeah. And to say, I'm really good at something.
Yeah. You know, and it's okay.
He just never denied who he was. No. Never denied who he was.
And he never put the false humility down of, no, no, no. I'm just this. He never says that. He actually very boldly says who he is.
Right. And functioned in who he was. And if you want to put it in a biblical.
Right.
proving of this, that personal development for the believer is not somehow antithetical to spiritual matters.
Right.
just because it's professional growth or relationship growth doesn't remove your spiritual life from it. You know, Jesus himself is our model. Right. And the scripture tells us that Jesus grew. He grew in wisdom. So there's knowledge and understanding and skill set. So he grew in wisdom and in stature. So he grew physically, he developed his physical being. you know, he grew in favor with God. There's your spiritual development. Right. Deeper faith, walking in truth.
He was the truth. So that was a good thing. But, growing and understanding of who he was to the point where when he was 12 years old, he was able to go, you know, I'm in my father's house doing my father's business, and it's okay, it's okay. Years of age.
Exactly.
And, so in favor with God and in favor with man. And there's your relationships. He was building and growing in those social skill sets. And how do I get along with mom and dad? How do I get along with siblings? How do I walk around as the son of God, in town with a peer group, you know, talk about personal development.
Exactly.
That took some skills.
Exactly.
You know, how do I speak to these rabbis at 12 years of age? With full confidence, full authority, and also with respect. there was a. That verse tells us that the same ways that Jesus grew, we're supposed to grow. And it's not to say, okay, I'm hitting up the gym because I see some physical goals in my life. That's not, oh, well, now you're glorifying the physical instead of the. No, you're taking care of the whole person that God created you to
be. And likewise with the disc assessment and the personal development and personal coaching and those kinds of things, professional skill sets that we go develop. Nobody, nobody gets mad when you tell them you're going to college. Right. You're going to college to learn some stuff. Same thing.
Yeah. You've got to be able to understand that just because you might be going to church and you're growing in spiritually, you're growing spiritually, you're building yourself up. You also need to grow yourself up personally. You also need to grow yourself up physically as well.
Right.
you need to work on the whole thing. And you said something, earlier that I just thought was great, that the spiritual is what empowers the body.
Right.
You know, it's that. Not that the body takes over, it's that the spiritual part of it empowers the body. And we need to develop, all of us, and I do think that that is something that is lacking, big time lacking in the church is that we really focus on spiritual development. Spiritual development. Spiritual development. Spiritual development. You've got to learn these verses. You got to learn. And we don't focus enough.
Or let's put this way, we don't encourage enough the other things of, personal development, of, relationship development, of being able to handle the things that God has for you. Because we don't live in a spiritual bubble. We live in a world that requires us to do all the thing we're.
Supposed to be in the world, but not of it.
Exactly. So we need to have all of the tools. So if we just focus on one, you know, it's like, you know, if you just focus on one muscle all.
The time, it's gonna be really big, strong.
It's gonna be really and strong, but actually might turn into a detriment because there are things that you won't be able to do because this muscle'strong in this. And these are not, you know, it's.
Not functional muscle exactly. It's just big muscle.
As. As we continue to talk and as we continue to look at the importance of. Of personal development and, you know, kind of breaking these myths off of personal development that, you know, you should be humble. You know, you should be.
You should. But humble doesn't mean denying who you are.
Exactly.
Well, yeah, you know.
Well, that's what.
It doesn't mean belittling yourself. It just means understanding who gave you those gifts.
Right.
Function in them. Function in them unabashedly and unrestrictedly.
Yep. Do not be afraid.
Right.
And you know what? You also don't have to shy away.
Right.
And you know, that's one of the things that I know that for me, personally, I've struggled with huge. I mean, that's been a huge struggle with me is actually a false humility. You know, someone who very easily steps into limelight situations actually gets energized on it.
Yeah.
And stuff. And for 15 years or whatever, I was like, I'm not getting on a stage because.
Cause I don't want to draw attentionus.
I don't want to draw attention to myself. And I basically, the thing that God had put in me, that was the strength of me and what I could do and who I was and what.
You bring to his kingdom.
Yeah, I just squashed down and turned it into a. I'm just gonna be humble here. And what it was is I was actually being you. False humility.
Yeah. Well, it's that line of going, understanding that true humility is I'm not going to place demands on others to notice, recognize, and pat me on the back.
Right.
But it doesn't say, I'm not gonna do the thing that I'm really good at. And if somebody does notice and say, wow, you're really good at that, I can say, wow. Thank you. Yeah, it's okay to say wow. Thank you.
Yeah.
Because I've worked at that and I've.
Grown that in myself've strengthen those muscles and stuff. So, as we continue this, and I think Becky and I are gonna talk more about this in the weeks to come, we're going toa talk about personal development. And why is it so important? Because it is what God gave you, it is what God put inside you. And you need to develop that. Because God wants to use you.
Right.
And you need to use you.
That's right.
Know.
Because you will never be fulfilled if you're busy denying who got.
Exactly. Exactly. And that's a whole nother thing, which I know we're going to get into in the weeks to come. And we want to just kind of start this off, kind of crack open the can here a little bit on personal development and how we believe it, how important it is, and how biblical it actually is. And we want to talk more about this in the weeks to come. So we hope you tune in for those as well.
Absolutely.
And we wanted to throw out a quick thing that this week we are actually video taping our episode, trying something new. And if you want to see the video of this episode, it is gonna be on our locals. And you're like, what is locals? Well, locals is kind of. It's very similar to Patreon groups and things like that, but it is a group that we have. It's a community that we're, putting
together. And to join it, there is a fee to join it, but that money goes directly to us to help pay for what we're doing.
Content.
Yeah, it helps, it's kind of like, you know, helps support us. And it'the minimum to join up is $5, right?
It's $5 per month. So it's an ongoing subscription, just like a Patreon would be.
Yeah. And so that $5 helps again, it comes directly to Becky and I and supports us as we're doing these videos and, the other things, from extra blogs to early content to different things that, sometimes you get me just kind of pulling off the side of the road and posting a video and things like that.
Unfiltered thoughts.
Yeah. So you kind of get that as well. Plus, start traveling, things like that. You're gonna get all these diaries, all this sort of stuff that we'll be putting on that locals group to help you stay connected with what we're doing here at Trim the wic. So if you want to join the locals, you can go to www.trimthewwick1word.com, which we're excited about.
Those of you been with us for a while, you know that that address has changed. The old address will still work, but, whoever had Trim the Wick prior gave it up. So.
Yep. So we now. We are now officially trimth thewick.com doay.
That was actually an answer to prayer for you.
Yes, it was. So we would love to have you be a part of our locals, community. So next week, we're gonna continue talking more about this personal development and the steps to starting to put things in place for your own personal development plan and how you can start, focusing on those things that, you might not have been focusing on.
And we'll be bringing in some examples from the scripture to back that up to where these are solid principles, and they are solid principles that God already laid out.
Yeah. So it's good stuff.
Yeah.
All right, so that'll be all for this week.
So take a step forward every day until we see you again.