God Made Us Each Different

God made us each different. Isn’t it amazing? Unfortunately, it is irritating that people around or near us have such strange concerns, habits.  and fears. Can both be true together?

God and the Bible helped me see who I am and others are through 40 years of my life. Then a Christian boss who loved to share the gospel gave me a new challenge. I worked to create a better system, and a better more honest culture for his Christian business. He was a genius at connecting the dots to find money for the business and for businesses he helped. His management ability was a disaster, however.

He blocked me and subverted my efforts to improve the management for his benefit at every turn.  I was aghast, and he seemed quite ok with his system destroying which made his business poor.

Then, I searched the internet and found a temperament description that absolutely explained him. See Keirsey.com for a brief explanation of the letters. I bought the book, Please Understand Me II. They showed how his being ENTP and me being ESTJ made us natural enemies. I created systems. He destroyed them to let freedom reign. Yes, I saw chaos and people pulling in different directions as inefficient. He felt these systems were chains that held back success.

God Made Us Each Different in Temperament

So let me stop and explain personality. Also, see Being the Body of Christ.

Temperament is the hardware that each person is born with like my ESTJ.

Character is the set of all behaviors and attitudes you develop through your experiences and how you face them in life. That is like firmware, changeable software but but not easy yo change.

Personality is the combination of your unchanging base temperament and your life long developed character.

Many personality measures like one saying who are owls, dolphins, beavers, and foxes and such are actually measuring temperament, your hardware.

Temperament cannot be judged, good, or bad nor would each types various interests.

Character is what we make of our temperament and can be judged good or bad, upright and corrupt. This ENTP boss was bad at management naturally, but his character had been ruined by bad business friends. That made him a cheater which was not God’s plan.

Simplifying ,we could say that you are a combination of your given temperament and your experiences.

That makes everyone unique even if two ESTJ’s meet for example.

Each letter is strong or weak. If someone is 100% introvert or 60% introvert, they still get an I for introvert though the strength if the I is so much different.  Also, girls are different than boys in each type. Finally, you have birth order and family dynamics that deeply image how the temperament shows up. A traditional ISTJ person in China is different than one in America because they are loyal to different traditions. Let’s get back to the bigger picture.

Please note. Temperaments mean we care about different things and tend to focus on different things.  The hardware has a powerful impact on our response to stresses, excitement and libraries.

What I want to say is we need to accept and understand differences in people around us. The differences are by God’s design. Here is some break down that amazes me. God knew we needed NT’s but not too many for example.

See the Breakdown

SJ‘s are traditional and habitual. They are institution and systems builders and supporters. 45% of people are like this. James the Half Brother of Jesus  and Luke were SJ.

SP‘s are adaptable and good in the moment and with manipulating people and tools. 30-35% of people are like this. Peter the Apostle was SP.

NF’s are all about relationships and live by passion 15% of people are NF. John the Apostle was NF as were most of the prophets.

NT‘s love technology, They see the future and create the future by the systems they break, and the things they invent. Half are visionary leaders and half are visionary inventors.  5-10% of people are like this.  Paul the Apostle was NT.

See how God used different people to write the New Testament. It helps each of us have a place to connect. We need all these people and time will not change their temperament. Each personality has natural strengths and weaknesses.

We can learn a new temperament just like we can learn a new language, but our native language and temperament will never change.

I see that God puts various temperaments in families to spice things up and lead us to Him. Best estimates are 35% of your personality is inherited. I see 65% is from God. Identical twins usually have very different temperaments though their DNA is the same.  My three kids are ESTJ, INFP, and ISFP/J.

See how the first two kids have no letter in common. They are so different. How can they be siblings? Yet they are. The youngest has P and J that are the same strength.  May we see how God made them just for us.

Let’s do more to understand and love the people around us.