What’s Your Personality? Let Self-Awareness Serve Spiritual Growth
Your natural strengths can help you serve, and they can also need correction. Let Scripture and honest feedback make you more patient, truthful, and useful.
#419 — What's Your Personality - How the Answer Shapes your Faith and Life
Mar 23, 2026
Play the original Excel Still More episode here without leaving the article.
The question beneath our confidence
Two Christians may read a passage and bring different instincts to the discussion. One wants to reach a conclusion quickly. Another wants more time to consider possibilities. One notices a detail; another notices how the conversation is affecting someone. Those differences do not decide who is right. They do remind us that our own approach needs examination. Following Christ includes learning where a familiar strength may be making us less willing to hear something else His word has to say.
My own way of approaching a question usually feels normal to me. It is easy to assume I am simply reading clearly while the other person is adding emotion, uncertainty, or rigidity. Sometimes that assessment is fair, but sometimes we have confused familiarity with accuracy. Spiritual growth includes asking how our tendencies influence the way we hear God and treat people. We are not trying to replace Scripture with a personality description. We are trying to recognize anything in ourselves that could make us selective listeners to Scripture.
Neither wrongful acceptance nor wrongful condemnation is safe
Proverbs 17:15 condemns both justifying the wicked and condemning the righteous. We need the whole warning. It is wrong to approve evil, and it is wrong to treat an innocent person as guilty. Our natural concerns may make one danger more visible than the other. A careful Christian should want protection from both. Ask which mistake you are quickest to notice and which one you tend to explain away. That can show you where more study and humility would help.
Ask which side of the warning receives most of your attention. You may fear being too permissive while rarely considering whether you have unfairly condemned someone. Or do you fear harshness while finding reasons to avoid a needed correction? This is a question about tendencies, not a forced choice between two wrongs. It helps us identify where to study and pray with greater care. The part we least readily examine may be the part through which our personal comfort is quietly shaping a judgment we describe as purely biblical.
Use personality descriptions with care
Personality descriptions can give us words for familiar tendencies: speaking or reflecting, noticing details or possibilities, seeking closure or leaving a question open. Use them modestly. A label cannot explain your whole character, determine God's will, or excuse conduct that needs to change. Scripture remains the guide. The useful part is noticing something real about how you behave. Once you see the habit, you can ask whether it is helping you love people and respond faithfully to the Lord.
Use a description to observe conduct you can actually recognize. For example, do you think aloud so quickly that other people struggle to finish their thoughts? Do you reflect so privately that useful encouragement is never expressed? Do you avoid details because a large idea is more exciting? Do you avoid a larger question because your routine feels secure? Concrete examples reveal more than a label. The goal is not to find a category you can defend, but to notice a habit the Lord may need to refine.
A strength still needs a companion
James 1:19 calls us to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. A person who enjoys talking may need deliberate quiet to obey. A quiet person may need courage to offer an encouragement or address a concern. Growth does not require us all to have the same personality. It does require willingness to practice what does not come naturally. A strength becomes more useful when it has room for another quality that the Lord also asks us to develop.
Details and possibilities can both help us understand. Careful attention prevents a careless claim, while a broader view may reveal a connection or opportunity we would otherwise miss. Plans help good intentions become action, while flexibility helps us respond when a real need interrupts the plan. God can use differing strengths, as Romans 12:3–8 reminds us in its description of varied service. But a strength becomes less useful when it excuses neglect of another responsibility. Balance allows what is good in a tendency to serve people more faithfully.
Truth and compassion belong together
A person who values clear logic may notice a mistake and miss the listener's fear. A person who values harmony may see hurt clearly and struggle to say what is needed. Ephesians 4:15 brings truth and love together. Neither should become an excuse for neglecting the other. A difficult conversation may require accuracy and courage, with equal attention to patience and care. Ask how to offer what is true in a way that helps the person rather than simply displays your preferred strength.
Bring two questions into the conversation: what needs to be clear, and how can these words genuinely help? Care for the listener gives truth a thoughtful way to reach them. It asks you to consider timing, tone, evidence, and your own motive. Likewise, concern for feelings does not remove the duty to tell the truth. A loving correction may be uncomfortable, and a technically accurate statement may still be delivered selfishly. Let Christ’s character govern both the content and the way it reaches another person.
Do not make God an enlarged version of yourself
We can accidentally imagine God as a larger version of ourselves. If firmness comes naturally, warnings may receive most of our attention. If reassurance comes naturally, we may hurry past a needed correction. Read the passages you are less eager to discuss. Let the Lord's full teaching challenge your instincts. We are learning His character, not collecting support for our own. The person most useful to Him remains willing to hear something that asks for growth.
Mark 9:33–40 shows Jesus challenging the disciples' concerns about greatness and their treatment of someone outside their group. He interrupts their way of framing the question. We need that kind of interruption too. Read beyond the verses that already confirm your instincts. Listen to a faithful person who notices something you have missed. Test what you hear against the text. A willingness to receive correction is one of the clearest signs that we want to follow the Lord rather than merely have Him approve our familiar approach.
Let someone else describe the pattern
Sometimes another person can see a habit we miss because we know our own intentions so well. I may intend care and sound abrupt. I may intend patience while someone experiences repeated avoidance. Ask a trusted Christian for a concrete example. Listen without immediately explaining why the example should not count. Their understanding may need correction too, but first hear what they are trying to tell you. Honest feedback can help bring the effect of our conduct into view.
Compare what you hear with Scripture and with your own observation. Some feedback may be mistaken, and some may reveal a pattern you have not been willing to notice. Choose one behavioral adjustment that can be observed: ask a question before drawing a conclusion, summarize before responding, or name a concern directly instead of hinting around it. After practicing, ask whether the adjustment helped. This turns self-awareness into accountable growth. A label can describe an inclination, but repeated truthful feedback and obedient practice are more likely to show whether that inclination is becoming useful under Christ’s direction.
Practice the quality you need to strengthen
Choose one habit that helps you grow where your balance is weakest. If you readily speak, practice listening all the way through. If you avoid a difficult truth, prepare to say it plainly and kindly. If you love planning, leave room to respond to a real need. Keep the change concrete enough to recognize. We are not trying to defend a personality category. We are learning to bring the people we are under the direction of Christ.
Ask someone who knows you whether the practice is helping. Look for observable growth in patience, dependability, courage, or attention to others. Keep the discussion focused on conduct rather than a label. James 1:22–25 connects hearing God’s word with doing it, and that is where self-awareness should lead. Understanding your tendencies is helpful only when it makes you more responsive to Christ. Bring your strengths, weaknesses, and preferences before Him, and let the person you are become more useful to the people He calls you to love.
Take the idea with you.
- 01Which personal tendency most influences the way I approach disagreement?
- 02What part of Scripture challenges a quality I usually consider a strength?
- 03What balanced habit could help me love and serve people better?
Prefer listening?
The original episode player is available near the top of this article, so you can listen without leaving the page.
