Jesse Eubanks - How We Relate: Understanding God, Yourself, and Others through the Enneagram

How We Relate will help you understand your personality traits and why youre inclined in the ways you are. But thats not really what its about. This book is about connectionabout helping you discover what youve never noticed in yourself or in others so that you can relate, commune, serve, and love. That is the kind of help I need, and you probably do too.

RUSSELL MOORE, editor-in-chief, Christianity Today

The Enneagram is a profoundly helpful tool for self-discovery. But what do we do after weve dissected our own personalities and then have to put on shoes, walk out the door, and interact with a diverse world? Jesse Eubanks helps us answer that question, and more, through this insightful resource.

A. J. SHERRILL, Anglican priest and author of Being with God: The Absurdity, Necessity, and Neurology of Contemplative Prayer

Relationships matter, and they can bring us the greatest joys and cause us the deepest hurts. So becoming aware of how and why we relate to others in certain ways is extremely important for our well-being. Jesse Eubanks has given us a clear and practical guide on how to access the tool of the Enneagram within a Jesus-centered context to understand ourselves and to nurture strong and life-giving relationships. What a gift!

MARILYN VANCIL, author of Self to Lose, Self to Find: Using the Enneagram to Uncover Your True, God-Gifted Self

How We Relate guides readers to Jesus and his radiant gospel as they discover their wirings through the Enneagram. With honesty, wit, and wisdom, Jesse Eubanks offers one of the most helpful resources on the subject to help Christians navigate how they relate.

DR. JAMAAL WILLIAMS, lead pastor, Sojourn Church Midtown, Louisville, Kentucky

The purpose of life is relationships, writes Jesse Eubanks in How We Relate. Through a thoughtful exploration of the Enneagram, the gospel, and his own story, Jesse masterfully interweaves these threads together to create a powerful chord of interconnectedness between an awareness of self and others. He helps readers pay attention to the things that matterthings of the soul and lives lived well, loving others and ourselves, from our true selves.

PAUL ANGONE, author of Listen To Your Day: The Life-Changing Practice of Paying Attention

Knowing the Enneagram and how your personality is structured is a gift, which can truly be useful only after youve discovered how your Enneagram type helps and hurts you. Each of us is a gift to the worldone that can be beautiful only when we embrace all of who we are and who our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and families are. How We Relate is a practical and valuable guide to receiving what is beautiful and rejecting what is false about who God created you to be.

SEAN PALMER, author of Speaking by the Numbers: Enneagram Wisdom for Pastors, Teachers, and Communicators and Forty Days on Being a Three

How We Relate moves the Enneagram beyond self-awareness and into the context of relationships. When used solely for self-reflection, the Enneagram falls short of its full value because we were created for connection. In these pages, Jesse Eubanks will help you discover that a truly meaningful life is found in your everyday relationships with God and others.

BETH AND JEFF MCCORD, founders of Your Enneagram Coach

ZONDERVAN BOOKS

How We Relate

Copyright 2023 by Jesse Eubanks

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

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ISBN 978-0-310-36522-8 (audio)

Epub Edition DECEMBER 2022 9780310365211

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Eubanks, Jesse, 1979, author.

Title: How we relate : understanding God, yourself, and others through the Enneagram / Jesse Eubanks.

Description: Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 2023. | Summary: How can we share ourselves if we dont know ourselves? In How We Relate, Enneagram coach and host of The EnneaCast podcast Jesse Eubanks invites you to discover who you are by interacting with the Enneagram through the gospel story to grow in your self-awareness, improve your relationships, and encounter Jesus.Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022031551 (print) | LCCN 2022031552 (ebook) | ISBN 9780310365198 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780310365211 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Interpersonal relationsReligious aspectsChristianity. | Enneagram. Typology (Psychology)Religious aspectsChristianity. | BISAC: PSYCHOLOGY / Personality | RELIGION / Christian Living / Spiritual Growth

Classification: LCC BV4597.52 .E925 2023 (print) | LCC BV4597.52 (ebook) | DDC 158.2dc23/eng/20220906

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022031551

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022031552

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version). Copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Any internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published in association with the literary agent Don Gates @ THE GATES GROUP, www.the-gates-group.com.

Cover design: Faceout Studio / Tim Green

Cover illustration: beastfromeast / iStock

Interior illustrations: Jesse Eubanks

Interior design: Denise Froehlich

Printed in the United States of America

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For Lindsay My Beautiful

thank you for showing me

how to love and be loved.

And for imagining the first doodles

that eventually created this book.

If you want a meaningful life, invest in your relationships.

Y ears ago, I was sitting in a circle of chairs with about a dozen other men. We were in a cold room on the third floor of an old elementary school that had been turned into a church. It was the edge of springtime and gloomy outside. The leader was encouraging us to each share a burden we had been carrying for a long time and couldnt seem to get past. Sitting with a small group of people talking about their burdens can be excruciating, but he said doing so takes the shame away because we see that others arent judging us. (Oh, if only they knew the firing squad I had stationed at the ready in my head.)