Character

"The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7 NIV)".

Lexico describes a person's character as 'the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual'. It's important for us to know the areas of our character that need to be developed so we can speak the changes into existence. It will also help us to avoid speaking negative character traits into our lives. I used to love partying to a song called Big Pimpin' by Jay-Z. In the song there's a line that goes: "I have no patience and I hate waiting". I would often rap that line when I was waiting for someone to do something and before long those words became my reality. I began to struggle with patience and my behaviour wasn't very Christ-like. In order to become a more patient person I've started speaking patience into existence by saying: "I'm patient and kind so waiting is fine". If I keep repeating that statement it will become me.

This article in Psychology Today discusses the difference between personality and character explaining that it can take a while before we are able to determine a person's character. When we first meet a person we see their personality and we can normally tell whether the person is extroverted or introverted. However, we don't really know what a person's character is like until it has been put to the test. I wasn't aware that I had an issue with patience until my husband pointed it out to me. We can't change a person's character we can only change our own through prayer, meditation and spoken affirmations.