The Dangers of the Introvert Movement.

When I first saw the introvert-pride blogs and memes begin to surface on the internet, I was thrilled. I was quick to share these articles and cartoons, happily proclaiming my introversion to the social-media world. Finally, people who understand! People who appreciate who I am! 

I wasn't made aware of the problems of this mentality until many months later, when reading a reactionary blog from an extrovert who felt attacked by introverts. This individual was clearly hurt that extroverts were so often portrayed as shallow, obnoxious, and lacking in intelligence and creativity.

I suddenly saw my introvert-pride for what it really was: just plain old ugly pride. My continual promotion of introverted values had created an us vs. them mindset within myself, and I had actually begun to think of extroverts as "less-than", as people who could never really "understand" or "mesh" with me.

But in fact God has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 

 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" There should be no division in the body. Its parts should have equal concern for one another.

-1 Corinthians 12:18-21, 25 

And what's worse, we introverts have begun to use our introversion as an excuse. An excuse to not
preach the Gospel. An excuse to avoid reaching out. An excuse to only participate in ministry that is "introvert-friendly." An excuse to remain rigidly within our comfort zone. Because God "made us this way for a reason," and He certainly would never call us to do something "against our nature."

As much as I, as an introvert, would like to believe that, when I look at Scripture, I simply can't. The true children of God act first and foremost not from some nature they were predisposed with from birth, whether introverted or extroverted or whatever else, but from the nature of the Spirit of God, which is love.

Some claim that Jesus was an introvert (personally, I tend to think of Him as somewhere in the middle of the introvert-extrovert spectrum--the perfect balance). But let's imagine for a moment that He was an introvert. Not for a moment did that nature keep Him from reaching out to people. Long after His disciples were exhausted and ready to go home, Jesus had compassion on the crowd and continued to minister to them.

On the flip-side, let's pretend Jesus was an extrovert--would that give Him the excuse to avoid spending time alone with God, because it wasn't "in his nature" to be away from people? Certainly not!

We're all different. We have different struggles, different temptations. We are all prone to disobedience in different ways, but the propensity of our natures does not give us the excuse to indulge in that disobedience. God will call both introverts and extroverts alike to behave in ways that go against our natural bent. It is in those circumstances that it is most clear that we must rely not on ourselves, but on His Spirit within us.

That is the true danger of the introvert/extrovert dynamic. It causes us to look at ourselves. It spurs us toward selfishness. But this life is not about us. It's about following the voice of God wherever He leads, with the trust that His power will see us through.