Writer, speaker and author Sarah Guinness knows that maintaining a regular quiet time with God isn’t always as straightforward as we’d like to believe – especially during the disruption of the summer holidays. Here, she explains how understanding the Enneagram transformed her relationship with God and why finding a spiritual rhythm that suits your personality can bring fresh life to your faith.
Can I be honest? When my kids were younger, those six weeks of summer felt interminably long and I would crave alone time, despite enjoying the holidays – or if it wasn’t quite that, simply a change of scenery. Although they’re now older, I still find that my term-time routine goes out the window during the holidays, and I often feel more spiritually disconnected than connected by the start of the September term, with a lingering sense of having somehow failed. Over summer, the days are longer, with many more interruptions, and I feel like I’m permanently catching up.
Finding my ‘type’ using the Enneagram has helped me understand how I show up in the world, and what my motivations and challenges are.
Finding my ‘type’ using the Enneagram has helped me understand how I show up in the world, and what my motivations and challenges are. For example, I’m an Enneagram Type 3, and we’re known to ‘get things done’ and enjoy ticking things off the to-do list, which is something of a challenge over the holidays. I tend to want to do things rather than sit about, and I thrive when I’m productive, whether that’s motoring through chores, writing or moving projects forward.
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The problem I have when it comes to ‘quiet times’ is that God doesn’t care about my productivity – in fact, activity for activity’s sake isn’t his currency. Connection with him is about quality, not quantity, and frustratingly for me, he often has no agenda for our time together. I turn up to prayer processing my thoughts, asking for help and turning things over, longing for God to speak and bring clarity, direction and answers. But he resists my agenda and wants my heart; he gives me what I need, not what I want. Growth for me looks like a slower pace and noticing God in the ordinary.
READ MORE: Snooze buttons are the enemy of your morning quiet time and experts say they’re bad for your wellbeing
The Enneagram is a tool with ancient roots that describes nine different personality types.
The Enneagram is a tool with ancient roots that describes nine different personality types. It doesn’t categorise our behaviour but tries to get at our core motivation – why we are the way we are, and what drives us. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it’s totally changed the lens through which I parent, care for and lead others. This tool has helped me be more compassionate, both to myself and to others, and it’s a reminder that people are not shaped like cookie cutters; we’re all so incredibly complex and different. And that means there is no one way to have a ‘quiet time’ with God. We can pray, read our Bibles and spend time with God in different ways that suit our personalities, and our life’s work is to find a groove that works for us and feeds our soul.
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As part of this, we need to flex and change our routine from time to time. For example, a year or so ago I needed to switch up my quiet time – it was getting stale and I wasn’t feeling nourished by the same diet of Scripture or the same pattern day in, day out. I knew I needed to learn to sit with my emotions, so for a period of a few months I read a Psalm a day in The Passion Translation – a paraphrase of the Bible – and I soon felt spiritually fed again. I combined it with ten minutes of contemplative prayer and felt something in me shift and loosen during that season. I’ve also journalled, tried a silent retreat and, more recently, I’m learning to engage my imagination when I read the Gospels, which is bringing them alive in a fresh way.
So perhaps this summer is an invitation to switch things up, to cast aside the normal routine and try something new. Maybe it’s practising gratitude morning and night, snatching moments of stillness, or embracing the change in pace as a gift from God and an invitation to engage with him differently. Can we reframe the disruption summer brings and experiment with different ways to encounter God, without feeling guilty for not doing it ‘properly’? This isn’t about stopping our quiet times but changing our spiritual diet in a way that reboots our spiritual metabolism. And if you want a holiday read, why not pick up a book about the Enneagram and find your type? It might explain a lot!
Sarah talks about this and more in her book, The Alternative Book of Discipleship (Malcolm Down Publishing), available now.
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