Are you more commonly a thermometer or a thermostat? Put differently, are you more likely to reflect the temperature in the room, or set it? It’s a question I find challenging, and wonder if you will join me as I think aloud about it.
One of the markers of likely success is the trait of agreeableness. It’s one of the big five personality markers in the OCEAN acronym:
Openness to experience which is usually accompanied by curiosity, creativity and willingness to give things a go
Conscientiousness shown in self discipline and goal directed behaviour
Extraversion displayed by sociability, energy, and assertiveness
Agreeableness, which is linked to compassion, cooperation and friendliness
Neuroticism, displayed in moodiness, emotional instability and often anxiety
If you want a little bit of a self portrait, rate yourself from one to ten on each of these markers and their implied opposite and you will get a sense of the kind of person you are.
Personally I rank high on the agreeability scale. My instinct is to be cooperative and to help both individuals and groups to meet their goals. I more quickly spot the good in others and while not blind to the more challenging aspects of some people’s personality, I’m usually willing to make some pretty generous allowances. It serves me well and I have come to genuinely like and work effectively with many people whom others have dismissed as difficult or not worth the effort. I have almost always concluded that the broader consensus is flawed and that if you give people a chance and lean in towards them rather than away from them, good things happen. As I say, this instinct has usually served me well over the decades.
But usually is not always. While I have always rejected the “guilt by association” notion (the assumption that because you are friendly towards someone you must also agree with them) there are times when I have concluded that I should have been more willing to challenge and to have pushed back. Live and let live is a very agreeable stance, but sometimes it’s a little too passive. It doesn’t stretch people enough, or invite them to think more deeply or to become a better version of themself. It’s great to be accepting, but shouldn’t we push back when someone is willing to settle for a pale version of who they could be?
It takes us back to the thermometer or thermostat question. Thermometers go with the flow. Thermostats set the temperature.
Now naturally you will assume that being the thermostat is the right thing. True – but only if the temperature you set is appropriate. It’s all too easy to set false standards that everyone is then forced to conform to. There is no virtue in that.
I live in the realm of the church and spend most of my time thinking about the role of the Christian faith in the world. Most times that role has been constructive (enormously constructive actually) but sometimes it hasn’t been. Often that has been linked to false and lazy assumptions about what the “good” looks like. At times the Christian faith has been framed legalistically. We have assumed people are virtuous because of what they don’t do – rather than requiring a more obviously positive contribution to the good of God’s world. Other times there has been the assumption that what is in the national interest is the same as what best serves God’s mission in the world. Horrendous things have been condoned when that assumption has held sway – when the thermostat has been national interest rather than the well being of the mission of God in the world.
OK – so if you are going to be a thermostat make sure you set the right temperature. Set it too high and you will scald rather than serve others.
When should we be a thermometer, when a thermostat?
In my book The Big Picture I argue that we need to discern the difference between the work of the Divine and the demonic. Sometimes we have been too quick to conclude that God is absent from the major social movements of our time. That’s a dangerous assumption, and presumes that God is essentially a Deus remotus – a distant God detached from the affairs of us lessor mortals. The Bible furiously disagrees with all such portrayals of God. The God of the Bible is constantly turning up. One of the key roles of the people of God is to help people spot what God is doing in the world and to then help them to co-operate with it. When God is doing something – be a thermometer – go along with it, co-operate with it fully.
And when should we be a thermostat? We set the temperature when we proactively live out the values of God’s kingdom – or put differently, when we display the fruit of the Spirit’s work in our life – being willing to live from love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). As Paul wisely notes, there is never any law against that fruit, and over time it challenges and transforms. When a culture is shaped by love, joy, peace, patience… well, when you see the opposite enacted something inside of you arcs up and you say simply, “this is not us… it’s just not us.”
We live in strange times. There is much that is good in the world (for God is always at work) and there is much that is troubling. How about we ask more often, “is this a time for me to be a thermometer or a thermostat?” And the reality is that there are times for each. Let’s be gracious enough to affirm when the setting is right, and courageous enough to work for a reset when it isn’t. And let’s remember that the tools to reset are as they have always been – they are the power of the Spirit working for change in the world through people shaped by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.
Nice chatting…
Photo by Mili Drag: https://www.pexels.com/photo/vintage-moscow-thermometer-in-hand-37321098/
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