If I was created to live life with my God as His child, then when I choose to live life on my own, I am choosing the life of an orphan, of one who has been abandoned. But I am not abandoned, my God calls me His child.
On my son’s birthday, what if he looked at his gifts and refused them, saying, “No, I’m an orphan.” As his mom, it would grieve my heart, but even more than that, it would hurt his. He would be self inflicting wounds because, in fact, he is not an orphan, and neither are we. Just like I love my kids, our God loves us. He gives us gifts and we can trust Him enough to take them.
In her book Becoming Us, Beth McCord writes of our three basic needs:
- Core Desire – What you are always striving for and believe will bring you complete fulfillment in your life.
- Core Weakness – The core issue you are always struggling with and will remain an issue until you get to Heaven.
- Core Longing – The central message your heart is always longing to hear.
Using the Enneagram, she writes about each type, their central messages to the three needs above, and God’s gift in meeting those central messages.
It’s a great marriage book…it’s even a great friendship book…but more than that, it shows us how we can lean into our God and choose not to live orphaned anymore. We would want to receive the gifts He has for us.
This book has refined the way I see the Enneagram, and I believe it can help us be better versions of ourselves, because when we appropriately rely on our God, we become children who can live free, and people who can love and be loved well. It’s one more step into Becoming Us.
This is the free life. This is the life I never knew I always wanted.
Take your free enneagram test here!
