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The Personality Puzzle: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Sometimes you might ask yourself why somebody just can't change. We were all created the same way in the image of God, yet we all perceive and interact with the world in our own different ways. This is a good thing, even though it often results in disagreement and disappointment. This post will look at some of the reasons why personality is by design.

In the beginning...

The Genesis 1 account of the world's creation contains a theme of opposites. There was darkness, and then there was light. There was land and water, and then sky. The sun and the moon. Fish and birds. Male and female. Goodness and evil.

It was made like this because the world needs balance. Without opposites, the world as we know it would not only stop making sense, everything would be the same. Yet it’s more complicated than there being “thing” and “lack of thing” or “replacement for thing”. Certain traits appear in varying degrees in the finer details of nature, making everything different in a unique way. Every star in the sky is unique, every animal is unique, every plant, every area of land, every cloud, and every person. The difference in people is what we call personality.

What is it?

Personality is a combination of a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. You may have taken a personality test at some point and noticed some patterns in your life. You may prefer time to yourself, or you may find yourself needing the company of others. You may tend to lean toward emotions or toward logic to lead you in making decisions.

One could argue that a certain personality type is better than another, but this doesn't seem true. We were all created with varying degrees of certain traits, while God is both self-sufficient and considers his people good, acts on feelings, which themselves are logical, and is love and patience while being capable of hate and wrath. He is a combination of all personalities, and this is perfect.

Why do we need different personalities?

If they are all of equal value, why is there a difference? The short answer is that we need to interact. You may have heard it said that “opposites attract” when it comes to friends or partners, and this is evident in the way our personalities work. We each have our strengths that can fill others’ weaknesses, and our weaknesses that others’ strengths can fill. Your friend may connect with God through thought and ideas, while you find it more natural to connect through experience and activities. Neither is a better way to do it, and this ensures that mankind shares its individual gifts to bring and keep us together.

Picture a jigsaw puzzle. The shapes of the pieces look similar, but after looking at them more closely, they all have subtle differences and no two are the same. As a result, they are each designed to fit into a few of the other pieces, which fit into even more pieces, and so on. When the puzzle is complete, the pieces connect to form a literal big picture. We individuals are the pieces and the picture is the body of Christ.

In contrast to the puzzle, imagine a grid of squares. The squares sit next to each other and fit perfectly around the edges, but there is no connection on the inside. They are entirely independent of each other and if one moves, they fall apart.

Character in Christ

Even though the puzzle is designed to be put together, it doesn’t come out of the box that way. You need to act. A person’s character includes learned (and unlearnable) traits like habits, beliefs and thought patterns as well as personality. For example, while you can’t make yourself less naturally extroverted, you can make a habit of focusing on yourself more often. In addition to the spiritual gifts we’re made with, that allow us to effectively serve our chosen purpose, we also receive and develop more gifts at varying stages of life. The puzzle pieces must find where they fit in, face the correct way, and stick there.

Sometimes it’s not so easy to solve the puzzle, and you need help. Sometimes certain parts aren’t clear and need to be set aside until things start coming together. If you ask, God will always lead you to develop your character in ways that are good and he will show you where your life’s purpose is and what must be done to accomplish it. Our relationships with others are one of the many things we need to survive, and he carefully designed it in a way that encourages this. So who are you? What is your personality? What behaviors need to change to become the person you’re meant to be?

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Killing Time: Procrastination

The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.

- Proverbs 13:4

For new Christians, it often feels like there’s a stronger emphasis on the “do nots” than the “dos”. We’re always told “you shall not do this”, “you shall not do that”, and it’s easy to feel like we’d be better off not doing anything. While it’s true that God doesn’t always tell us in plain words what he wants us to do at any given time, he does, in fact, call us to certain actions in his time if you listen closely for him.

So what does this fact have to do with the title topic of this post: procrastination? The issue arises when we’re aware of something that God wants us to do, and then we simply do not do it. “The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak,” to quote the Lord himself. The typical response to one’s own laziness is “I’ll do it another time.” How can we possibly be sure of this? Only God knows what the future holds, and for anybody else to claim to know his will for it with complete certainty is lying. God doesn’t speak in uncertain terms like “some other time.” If you’ve been called to do something right now, you’ve been called to do it right now.

What is time, anyway? Time is what life and the universe are made of. It’s one of God’s greatest gifts to us which we are to use to accomplish his will in this world. Time is not eternal; there was a beginning and there will be an end. There’s no guarantee that there will even be a “later.” It is our most valuable resource, and Satan’s goal is to waste as much of it as possible.

One of the best ways he accomplishes this is indirectly. Simply telling us to waste time would be too obvious. He uses delay - leading us to believe that we can waste time now and do what needs to be done at some later point. Giving us the feeling that we’re doing something for the Lord just by intending to do something for the Lord, while in reality we’re doing nothing. Faith without works is dead. We must always understand how these traps work in order to avoid and escape them.

Essentially, this reason we would choose to do nothing is laziness. Laziness is a lack of effort, but more importantly it is a lack of work. Work is in our nature, as God works and we are made in his likeness. To not work is to be distant from our creator and fails to fulfill our purpose.

An alternate justification for procrastinating on God’s will for us is that we feel that we know best - that as long as we’re happy, we’re living our best life. But what if I were to say that happiness is not the goal of life? The goal of our lives is to become more like Christ so that we live in peace, with him, for eternity. Not just the rest of time, forever. This is a much better reward than a lifetime of happiness, but this work must be our highest priority and never be delayed. It won’t be an easy path of idleness. There will never be a better time to do God’s work because “another time” is not guaranteed. Jesus lived a life of selflessness, sacrifice, and suffering, and yet his work was not put off, it is finished.

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Spiritual Food

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

- 1 Corinthians 10:1‭-‬4 ESV

We are all familiar with food. Not only is it one of our basic needs for survival, its pleasant tastes and smells provide a very enjoyable experience for us as well. As Paul said earlier in his letter to the Corinthians, the stomach is for food and food is for the stomach - we're literally made for each other.

But what is this "spiritual food" he spoke of?

Clearly he’s referring to the word of God, but why is this compared to food of all things? Before you start looking up recipes, this doesn't mean we all should literally eat our Bibles. It means that just like our bodies take in food and grow physically, our souls must take in truth and grow spiritually. We are for the Lord and the Lord is for us. It’s good to be full in both ways, but is all food good for us? One of the first commands to Adam and Eve was to eat; however, there was a notable exception to what specifically to eat.

The world today is filled with an abundance of information. Is more always better? Mixed in with the good is plenty of worthless and deceptive information.

Junk food information.

The salty and sugary snacks we know are of little to no benefit to us, but we keep coming back to anyway because they taste so much better than the fruits and vegetables. Overeating of junk food leads to a variety of long-term health issues because our bodies are simply not meant to process so much of it. You might get your junk food from social and news media, from entertainment, from comfort in your present situation, from that friend who always has some new topic to complain about. You might even get it from a feel-good sermon at church. Whatever yours is, this spiritual junk food may make you happy about what you’re doing at the moment, but after it is digested it does not actually challenge you to become a better, more God-centered person.

This is not to say that we should avoid being happy at all costs. There are foods that can be seen as a healthy snack in moderation, but become a problem when they act as the main meal, or in other words, take the place of God’s word in our lives. It’s important that we save our appetite for what we need to hear and not just what we want to hear. Like any good parent, God wants us to be properly nourished and will give us what we need when we need it.

If you’ve ever tried changing your diet, you might have counted calories and considered the nutrition facts of everything you eat. What would happen if you did the same for the information you consume? You might find that when you eat the spiritual food God provides, you actually become hungrier for more. The key is staying consistent, making it not just something you do, but the way you live.

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My Story So Far

My name is Chris and the purpose of this blog is to inform and encourage fellow believers and non-believers in Christ with truth found in scripture. I will be explaining confusing concepts and common misconceptions, as well as sharing themed devotional messages. For a first post, here is a summary of my personal experience with finding his purpose in my life in recent years.

Last October, I got to help start an online Bible study group with a few of my friends. This was huge for me because, as readers of this blog may be aware, I've struggled with selective mutism (a rare extreme fear of talking, basically) for most of my life, and still do quite a bit. This, of course, has led to difficulties in creating friendships, performance in school, and everyday interactions. I always assumed that I would just naturally “grow out of it” over time, that this fear would just disappear by itself. Thinking this way, I never seemed to make any progress at all. This fear was huge, it controlled my every thought and action, and there was no escape from it, or at least that's what it wanted me to believe.

It was around early 2016 when God reached out to me. I've always had an idea of who God is, but this was when I really met him and began to have an intimate relationship with him. During what was probably my worst point of anxiety, I got this feeling that I needed help. Not from people alone; from him. I made the decision to give God control of my life, because while fear can easily stop me, what power does it have over him? This unconditional trust in him changed everything.

That summer my family suggested I start working for a retreat center on the shore, known as Harvey Cedars Bible Conference. This idea, of course, terrified me. I expected going through the same misunderstanding and punishment that filled my experience in school, which led me to generally avoid being around anyone alone. I did it anyway, facing the discomfort, trusting that this was what needed to happen. This experience was and is so much different than I had thought, everyone was so loving, understanding, and comforting. I was treated like a normal person and finally started to feel as such. There was nothing to be afraid of here. When I allowed God to live through me, everything from the smallest details to the biggest decisions changed for the better, and I had a purpose. Later, in 2019, I met friends with sweet, kind hearts that made it very easy to grow comfortable with them. They sets a great example of what it means to live for God, and I've seen him use them several times already to change people's entire lives. Anyway, as I mentioned before, one of them invited me to start a little Bible study group with others from HCBC. Unlike what I would have done in the past, I immediately happily said yes! This group of godly people has shown each other nothing but genuine love, encouragement, wisdom, and so much more. I can talk to them with little to no fear now and share my own experiences to show them the same. It's incredible looking back at all this and seeing how God's plan for me is so much greater than I could ever have imagined. Who would've thought all of this would come out of everything I've been through? Not to say that everything is perfect now; I am still continuing to transition to this new life, but I really mean it when I say I could not have asked for any other way than your way and I love you, God. Thank you to every brother and sister in Christ who has been used as a part of this story, including the Bible Time group, HCBC staff, and my supportive family.