4. My personality and spirituality, though incomplete and imperfect, can develop and improve.
(Before looking at the questions below, take a few minutes to think about this statement. Invite Jesus to speak to you about what He would like you to notice.)
How do you respond to the idea that your personality might not be fully mature and healthy?
What might contribute to or be some causes of our personality “imperfections”?
If your “spirituality” is your way of connecting with God, what do you think about the idea that we might also have spirituality imperfections?
What might be some causes behind these imperfections?
Most people would agree that, though we possess incredible potential for goodness, we are not perfect; we come flawed and incomplete. Most would also agree that these flaws are “fixable,” and that we can grow and improve. Our bodies typically respond well to exercise and discipline; our minds have great potential for growth and learning; and our personalities and emotional health, though imperfect, can be monitored and modulated toward greater health and wholeness.
The same is true of our spirituality. No one is perfect in their spiritual health but each of us has the potential to experience growth and healing in this area of our lives. Our ability to have a meaningful and close relationship with Jesus is something that can be developed and increased. Our relational capacity includes both our personality (how we relate to others), and our spirituality (how we connect with God). While these may be seen as separate, they both are essential to our relational capacity and they support each other.
In the same way that we grow in our relationships with other humans by exercising our personality, we also grow in our relationship with Jesus, by using our spirituality. And as we deepen our relationship with Jesus, we find that we are aided in our relationships with others.
Our spiritual and emotional health are closely connected and work together to support each other. If we exclude our spirituality and our relationship with God, we will be limited in our personality and our relationship with others. The alternative is also true: if we ignore our relationships with others we will be limited in our relationship with God.
The good news is that the flaws and deficiencies in both our personality and our spirituality can be healed and we can become whole. Secular culture invests much in emotional health while churches work to address spiritual health but healing in each of these ultimately comes from God.
The Spirit is the Therapist and Healer of our souls, including both our personality and spirituality—that is, our emotional and spiritual health. Although these two are distinct parts of our soul, they are both part of the same soul. We are most whole and complete when we unify these two, and as we do, we, with the Spirit’s help, we will experience healing and growth in our relational capacity.