Temperaments?

Introverts or Extroverts

This past week I was hanging with one of my friends and we were having a conversation about things going on in life and the things the Lord has been working in us and we ended up talking about personality types and I was reminded of something the Lord did in me.

There are personalities.

Like, Melancholy, Choleric, Sanguine, and Phlegmatic.

Check it out if you don’t know.

It’s really interesting.

Well, when I found out I was a Choleric/Melancholy, or when I realized that personalities even had I type, I clung to that and allowed myself to conform to that personality type rather than let God form me into someone that a type just followed.

Ultimately, this all caused a lot of conflict in my soul. Since I had put this label on myself, I wanted to do everything to make myself exactly that, but I was miserable.

My soul was reaching out for love and affection but I had this personality face, which told me that I was introverted, bossy, and a deep thinker.

Which, is true, but also created this place in me where I began to use it as an excuse to be inconsiderate.

And although it’s true, it doesn’t give me an excuse to be a jerk.

If I am choleric, which says they are impatient, and I’m full of Holy Spirit, and one of the gifts of Holy Spirit are patience, then I have lost my excuse.

And honestly, regardless of every defect to our character, if we have Jesus in our lives, we are no longer living to our own selfish ways and desires anyways.

We are dead to ourselves and alive to God.

To say, “I’m this personality type so I can or can’t do this” is a lousy excuse to be a jerk.

I was sitting in my room upstairs one day and everyone was outside having fun in the snow, and I opened my bible, as I was thinking about how

“Introverted” I was being and was like, “Lord I’m here”. 

And truthfully, I had my nose stuck in the air with pride because of it.

And He told me to go outside and be with people.

It was then that I realized whatever I had thought about myself didn’t matter.

The longer I was selfish with how and what I wanted to do, I’d be miserable. 

And the only time I’d be truly fulfilled, is when doing things with people I love, even if I don’t like what I’m doing.

I ended up loving every minute of it and my heart tank was full of love that night.

Now, don’t go do something against what Jesus would do/say/or taught, to be with people you love.

That’s just ignorant.

But, get over your idea of how you think you’re supposed to be.

Get over what everyone has said you are.

Get over the labels you want to fill, they’re not real anyways.

Get over the fears of doing something you don’t want to do.

Get over yourself.

And go out and be with people you love,

With people who love you.

With people you want to love.

With people you don’t know.

Go do things you’d never do.

Even if you’re scared.

Even if you’re insecure in the moment.

Step out and embrace life.

It’s scary to do things you’ve never done before.

Oh but the thrill and the satisfaction that comes with sacrificial love

Is worth every drop.

Expectations

Love is what?

Lately the Lord has been taking me back to a time where He was teaching me about 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter known for being the love chapter.

When He last took me here I was going through a weird transition in a relationship. I had the opportunity to be hurt and angry but I wanted to understand what love really looked like, biblically. I wanted to not react emotionally, but to handle it rightly.

In this season, I found out that love was a lot different than I had assumed but a lot more fulfilling.

The scripture says,

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends.”

There is one particular statement in this scripture that transformed the way that I love and it is, “Love does not insist on its own way”.

When I read that, it blew my mind.

Now, we can all be super spiritual and say, well duh I know that.

But that hit home to me, it was an exploding revelation in my heart.

To not insist on my own way.

That’s not that simple.

When I read that I just saw, “is not selfish”.

That’s how I saw it.

Even when not getting my own way, I still should respond in love.

Sometimes it hurts to choose to love when someone doesn’t love you back like you want them to, or doesn’t respond the way you want them to, but the moment you choose to love regardless of their response, the weight is lifted off your shoulders and you are free.

To not insist on your own way changes everything about love.

It makes it sacrificial.

Not about yourself.

But about the other person.

This past week the Lord brought me back to this.

I got disappointed because I had set some expectations and they didn’t turn out how I wanted them to.

And He was showing me that for me to place my expectations on people and then get angry because they don’t get met isn’t “not insisting on my own way”, but it’s saying that if this situations isn’t done my way, I’m have every right to be angry.

That’s not how relationships with any human being works.

We can’t be hurt when people don’t meet our expectations, and if you think about that, it’s almost ridiculous to assume people will meet our expectations to begin with.

Now, don’t stop setting standards and expectations.

Just learn that if someone doesn’t meet them, it doesn’t mean they are in the wrong.

And it doesn’t give you the right to be angry with them.

Simply talk it out.

That's just too good.

I don’t have to be all bent out of shape because MY expectations weren’t met.

 That set me free, friends.

Bottle

When we allow circumstances inside of us, they affect us.

 

I had a conversation with one of my best friends today and in the conversation she was telling me about a very horrible and traumatizing thing from her past that she’d found out about.  

While she was talking about it she was sharing about how hurt and mentally defeated she felt.

I told her something and I knew I had to share it,

Here was my response,

“Honestly, does it change who you are? 

Does it affect where you’re going in your future? 

Does it affect your relationship with the Lord? 

Does it mean you’ve been given an excuse to put off changing the world with the Gospel?

NO. 

It doesn’t. 

You forgive and move forward. 

As Todd White says, ‘you can’t afford to have a bad day.’ 

There is a generation of people depending upon you. 

You FIGHT. 

Even when you don’t feel like it.

Even when you don’t want to.

Even when you’ve been through Hell.

You know that circumstances don’t change that He is good and never changing.

You’re not subject to your mind and emotions. 

They are subject to you. ”

It’s a beautiful thing, how sometimes the Lord says something through us that we didn’t even know was in us. How a lot of the times, for me anyways, I’ll be mid-sentence while getting the revelation of what just came out of my mouth.

But we need to know this.

It may be a horribly shaking experience or circumstance, but only when we allow them inside of us does it get ugly.

It’s like the messages in the bottle that get thrown into the sea for someone to find and read. They pass through the entire ocean; salt, mold, seaweed, fish, garbage, algae, and all the things that the ocean contains, but if it’s sealed, the message never gets affected at all.

The same is true of us; we can be thrown somewhere overwhelming in the middle of horrid circumstances and they don’t have to affect us.

Only when we drink in the things around us do they affect us.

We don’t have to drink in the algae or the seaweed.

We don’t have to be moved.

We have been given the choice.

David said, 

"He only is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken." Psalm 62:2

Solomon said, 

"When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more, But the righteous has an everlasting foundation."

Proverbs 10:25

And Isaiah said, 

"The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, Because he trusts in You."

Isaiah 26:3

Choose steadfastness, choose joy, choose not to be affected by the storms that surround.

Jesus is consistent. 

Jesus is good. 

He's good,

every single time.