Everyone has a personality…yet, why do we have one; what is our personality for…what is its function? Certainly there is no other personality like yours. There isn’t another one like yours on the whole face of the earth; there never has been; and there never will be—you are the absolutely special rendition of God’s grace compacted into the very small space of your personality.
There is only one reason you have a personality and that is to express the special combination of God’s grace in you. Your personality achieves the goal of self-expression by performing the following six functions:
- Believing
- Perceiving
- Thinking
- Feeling
- Deciding
- Acting
All six of these functions are simultaneously and constantly operating without your conscious awareness. No one in the whole world behaves like you do…no one perceives or thinks or feels or decides or acts quite like you either—you are an exceptional, unparalleled, and notable individual just the way you are.
I’ve described these six functions in the book Discover Your Spiritual Strengths, which is the “flagship”, book of the Spiritual Strengths Healing Plan series of books. I invite you to look through this book, if you haven’t already, to get as firm a grasp of these six personality functions as you can. Doing this will not only give you a much deeper understanding of how your personality operates, it will also offer a keener insight into your illness care receiver.
You have been gifted, as has everyone, with extraordinary gifts that give energy to your personality so you can be the fullness of your giftedness to the world. These gifts, or what I prefer to call spiritual strengths, give you the distinctiveness that is you—the matchless amalgam of grace and power and light that you are called to use to illuminate the world.
You are at your best and holiest when you’re “in” your spiritual strengths. Your spiritual strengths define you in the universe of God; your spiritual strengths couldn’t be more personally important.
Each of your six personality functions has one premier gift or spiritual strength that serves as the power for that function so you can keep going. The power you require to operate your personality isn’t material; it’s not tangible—this magnificent power comes only from God. No one knows why you were given the spiritual strengths that you have. They are pure gift, and they propel you to be all that you can be.
Actually it’s not your personality per se but the way you choose to use your personality that determines how you use the six functions of your personality. So, it’s the way you use this marvelous tool of your personality that determines how you live your life. Just as important, it’s how you use your personality that creates how you feel as you move through the labyrinthine challenges that life presents to you.
The Holy Spirit has endowed you with the grace, power or strength to animate your personality. Indeed, you have been granted one “signature strength” for each of the six functions of your personality. Each of these six strengths is a virtue. All virtue flows from Love; and all virtue is the power or grace that makes you whole.
You can find out your six unique signature spiritual strengths when you take the “Spiritual Strengths Profile” or SSP. Click here to find out more.
Until next time…live in your spiritual strengths,
Richard P. Johnson, PhD