Lessons Learned for an INTP on the Mission Field: "Shut Up and Listen"

I have learned, and re-learned, a variety of lessons in the past 7 weeks I've been in Taiwan.

Chinese lessons from my last time in Taiwan. As hard as they sometimes are,
language lessons are probably the easiest lessons you learn on the field.

 

I've learned why there were more firecrackers going off in our community several days after Chinese New Year than there actually are on Chinese New Year's Eve night (They're set off in front of businesses as the work starts again for the new year, to ward off bad luck and evil spirits, even for those business owners who don't strictly believe in the spirit part).

I've learned that there are numerous Quaker churches all around the world, and Taiwan has quite a few. (The most are in... Kenya!)

I've re-learned that the subway doors open on the other side for a particular station on the metro line that runs nearest to where I live.

On a more relevant note:

I've learned that transitioning into an altered identity as a physically obvious outsider who still participates in Taiwanese culture to an as-yet-unsure-extent will be both easier and harder than I thought.

I'm still learning which friendships survived the years of my absence from Taiwan and which haven't.

I'm learning that God wills my good more than I wish for my own good.

One of the most important lessons, though, has required regular reminders.
That lesson is, to shut up and listen.


When I think I already know what someone is saying, shut up and listen.
When someone is telling me something about Taiwanese culture I learned the first time I came, shut up and listen.
When someone is saying anything I know is incorrect (and it's not harming anyone), at least at the beginning, shut up and listen.
When other people are talking about something and I know the answer they are trying to think of, shut up and listen.

More subtly, in Taiwanese culture, when someone asks me for my opinion, sometimes it's still better to not say much. Wait long enough for others to speak.

This is not difficult for some wonderful people because they are loving, humble, don't care about being regarded as a consistently accurate and reliable source of information, and often care about concrete things more than abstractions. God has been answering my long-term prayers to become a little more like those people, though I still have a long way to go.

In the Myers-Briggs personality system (MBTI), I am an INTP. One of the notable features of this personality type is the ongoing automatic quest to assimilate all the knowledge around us and construct a model of reality with it. It's not something I can really stop, and not something I -should- stop; it's a gift God gave me that He intends me to use in His service.

But when not put under the yoke of the 1st and 2nd Greatest Commandments, this drive to obtain, categorize, and synthesize knowledge becomes sinful, and can lead me to think of people more in the abstract and less as eternal persons created and loved by God, or simply to give more thought to the information in someone's communication than demonstrate love and respect for that person.
It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen.

Worse, when paired with my spiritual gift of teaching, when not kept in check it can go altogether awry, and I begin to mistakenly think my job is to make sure everyone has views on the world as accurate as my meticulously fact-checked and continuously updated and synthesized model of reality. This tends to result in (especially after too much coffee) unsuspecting friends or coworkers being the subject of a massive, very detailed information dump, which is rarely helpful to them. To their credit, they are often obligingly patient.

(Some of you may be laughing now, having experienced it. I can offer a retroactive apology but unfortunately cannot promise it won't ever happen again.)

Godly Example Story: The first time I lived in Taiwan, there was a nearly-retired missionary who I accompanied in various ministries. As a new arrival, I was busy soaking up Taiwan cultural knowledge, and at one point this missionary made a statement which based on something I had recently learned seemed to be incorrect. I pointed out the error and he simply said "well, you may be right." Later I realized that he had been right, and I was wrong, and he probably knew that. But rather than prioritizing "setting the record straight" and making sure I acknowledged that he was, in fact, correct, instead he simply let it go. That made a deep impression on me at the time, and I am trying to follow that example.

There's a great verse in Proverbs that talks about shutting yourself up when necessary:

"If you have been foolish, exalting yourself, or if you have been devising evil, put your hand on your mouth." Proverbs 30:32

(My air filter mask for bad air days and motorscooter rides works fairly well too.)

As a man who fears God (in the sense of being overwhelmed by His glory and majesty, and awareness that only the redemption made possible by Jesus Christ stands between myself and all-too-deserved judgment), I don't tend to find myself devising evil. Self-exaltation can be more subtle, however. We don't grow out of that quickly, it just takes on more and more outwardly appealing forms, like praising others and the false sort of humility.

But in those moments when I might be about to be foolish, may God keep reminding me to shut up and listen to what He's saying to me, both in the silence of His presence and the wisdom of others around me.

Hope you are all well and blessed.