Last week I did a nine-day road trip with my brother. And as I explained to the friends we met along the way, my brother and I couldn’t be much more different personality-wise. He’s an outgoing, adventurous, risk-taking, people person, whereas I’m way more reserved and quiet and I like to have my own space.
But what’s key for me to remember is that different does not mean better or worse. Both our personalities were shaped and scripted by our Creator God. We weren’t created to be the same. In our own ways we reflect the image of God and can bring glory to Him.
That’s what I must remember when I feel the pressure to be louder, crazier, more up in people’s faces. I have to silence the voice of lies that tries to tell me I’m less valuable, less wanted, less needed than the extroverts around me.
Instead I must choose to listen the voice of the one who knit me together perfectly, who calls me fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139). The voice of truth that tells me that my quietness, my introversion; they don’t define me. Yes, they are a part of natural me, but they are not who I am. They don’t get to dictate my worth.
Because my worth is not found in my abilities or my shortcomings or how many new friends I can make in a month. My worth, regardless of my personality and popularity, is rooted in the fact that I was created by the Creator of the Universe and that through the work of Jesus, I belong to Him.
God values equally the bubbly welcomer and the gently quiet, the extrovert and the introvert, the famous and the unknown. If this is the way God chose to make me, then he will most certainly use every aspect of my personality and every struggle I face according to his perfect plan.
We are all his masterpiece, created for good works which he has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10). In no way is God restricted in his ability to use his creatures for his purpose, he can use both the bashful and the bold.
In fact, sometimes standing alone against the wall is where I have met the person who really needed a friend. Sometimes staying at a distance from the crowds is how I learn to seek the approval of Christ above the approval of man.
In Mark 12:41-44 the widow was acknowledged by Jesus for the smallest, yet most generous of gifts. He invited this overlooked woman into his family–not because of what she had to give, but because of her willingness to give what she had.
God doesn’t judge us by our follower counts but by our devotion to him. If we love him and choose daily to live for him, our faith and our actions will glorify him, whether in the grace of the few words we speak or in the kindness, compassion, and generosity of our actions.
That being said, being a quiet kid is no excuse to shy away from the things God has for us. Sometimes we are called to step up out of our comfort zones. That’s where we learn and grow and are shaped by God. And hiding behind the excuse of quietness robs us of opportunities to grow and glorify God.
In Jeremiah 1:7-8, God tells Jeremiah to lay aside his excuses and step out in faith, holding onto the truth that God would be with him. The same thing happens in Exodus 3 and 4, God answering Moses’s excuses with his power, provision and presence.
Not that we need to get personality changes, but sometimes it means speaking up, even when we’d rather stay quiet. It means by the power of the Spirit being courageous and confident in the Lord.
So whether you are quiet or loud, don’t ever believe that your differences detract from your worth. Diversity in unity is part of God’s glorious plan, not a disadvantage. Either we allow our personalities to divide us, or we bring them to God as a sacrifice, working together to use whatever he has given, wherever he calls, the quiet and the loud, to build up the body of Christ and glorify him together.
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. And if the ear should say,’ Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.”
– 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 16-18
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