Finding Patience for Weakness

Posted on Mar 05, 2020 Topic :
Posted by : Jeremy and Adrienne Camp

Over the years there have been various fads in personality tests. When I was in high school, there was a test where we’d be described as an animal—lion, otter, golden retriever, or beaver. It’s probably because of my personality type, but I couldn’t understand how psychologists managed to assign the complex human soul to one of four categories. This classification bothered me immensely, especially when I had a characteristic or two from every chart.

Jeremy once had radio interviewers ask him which categories we fell into. He told them he was the lion and I was the beaver. They proceeded to announce that we were the worst combination. It’s a good thing we weren’t looking to personality tests for our marital direction when we first met, or else we would have missed the best adventure of our lives. Since then, I’m relieved to say psychologists have come up with more comprehensive personality tests.

A couple years ago we went through a stage where we were clashing quite a bit. It felt like no matter how hard we tried, we just couldn’t understand where the other person was coming from. Coincidentally, we took two different personality tests around the same time. We were just doing it for fun and had no idea how much the results would impact our understanding of each other.

We started seeing things in light of whom God has created each of us to be. Instead of feeling or thinking that Jeremy was downright crazy or that I had quirks he couldn’t wrap his head around, we had fresh insight into each other’s heart and wiring.

The tests also helped us see how other people might view our strengths and weaknesses. We all tend to give ourselves plenty of slack because we know where we are coming from or what our hearts’ intentions are in the moment. We often give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, but stepping back and seeing our personalities from someone else’s perspective is vital to building a good friendship.

We need to have tenderness and patience for each other’s weaknesses or places of immaturity. We all have them. We’ve all had difficult situations in life that have scarred us with different levels of undesired brokenness or dysfunction, and we are all inherently wired to look out for ourselves. But as we engage with the Lord, we have the rest of our lives to let Him change us to be like Him and to perfect His love in us. The sooner we realize marriage is a journey, the better. You do not arrive at perfection the day you get married. This is a commitment to becoming best friends and traveling through the rest of life together.