I have often wondered why I am so exhausted on Mondays. I guess it is inevitable given that the normal rhythm of my week leads up to Sunday. However, I found this by Steve Holmes in Walk this Way: 40 Days on the Road with Jesus.

One of my fellow-leaders at a previous church was a clinical psychologist, and she encouraged us to explore a tool like this [a ‘Myers-Briggs Type Indicator’]. It told me, among other things, that on a spectrum from ‘extrovert’ to ‘introvert’ I was right over at the introvert side. This surprised me at first as then, like now, I spent half my life on my feet talking to groups of people in lectures or sermons. Anne explained to me, however, that the scale was about comfort and energy: it’s not that we introverts can ‘t function in big groups, but it costs us something to do it. That made sense to me: I can turn it on in a group, but it takes something out of me; when I am tired or run down, I want to be on my own, or with one or two of a very small number of close friends.

How Steve describes himself strikes a chord with me. Maybe this helps to explain my tiredness. Certainly it is true that understanding ourselves a bit more means we are better placed to allow God to speak to us and use us as the people he created us to be. What kind of person are you?