I am an idea guy, but I often have to struggle to find faith. I tend to look at reality. I want to know the odds and hedge my bets if I can. All of which makes my faith walk a more difficult one. I tend to move toward comfort rather than uncertainty.

While I've been on vacation this week, I've been pondering the subject of "where does faith come from?" In many respects, it's a gift, but is a part of that gift hard-wired? Watching my five children, I see that they were born quite different from one another. One is very practical, one is action-oriented, another is more optimistic, and so on. We've watched the hard-wiring in them develop since year one, showing us how personality types are a God-given part of the DNA.

So, the question is: do idealists have an advantage over the rest of us in this struggle to find  faith? You could make the case that they do. They tend to see the world in terms of how it ought to look rather than how it looks at present.

When the gap between what is and what should be grows, the realist or the pessimist can't help but ask questions about where this thing is headed. But the idealist is more comfortable with uncertainty. The idealist knows that change is born in uncertainty - she has lived in that gap enough times before that they're OK there.

How does your personality type impact your ability to exercise faith? What else has grown your faith over the years?