S.H.A.P.E. (4)

The letter P stands for personality. Before a company hires a leader, they often do a personality profile to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Question: are you compassionate towards people, or competitive with them? Are you a hard-driving type-A personality, or do you have a more nurturing temperament? The worst thing you can do is to envy someone else’s personality type and say, ‘I wish I was just like them.’ That’s like saying to God, ‘You made a mistake when you made me.’ God will help you to change your conduct and strengthen your character, but you can pray until you’re blue in the face and He won’t change your personality. Instead, He will help you to recognise it and maximise it. The old saying is true: ‘Birds of a feather flock together.’ Eagles don’t want to hang around with ducks. They don’t want to live in a farmyard or swim in a pond. Their potential makes them impatient with those who cannot soar. Eagles are loners. Ducks, on the other hand, are team players. Some migrate thousands of miles from the UK to warmer climates, flying in a perfect V formation without breaking rank. They know how to defer to one another and care for one another. Before God assigns you, He designs you. He gives you the right personality to fulfil His plan for your life. So instead of putting yourself down or wishing you had a different temperament, say with the psalmist, ‘You…knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvellous – how well I know it’ (Psalm 139:13-14 NLT).