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For 30 years, Christian leader and spiritual adviser Billy Graham has been offering advice to the thousands of readers who share their problems ...
Read more about By Billy Graham, Tribune Media Services.
For 30 years, Christian leader and spiritual adviser Billy Graham has been offering advice to the thousands of readers who share their problems ...
Read more about By Billy Graham, Tribune Media Services.
Can God Change My Personality?
By Billy Graham, Tribune Media Services
Q: I wish I could be friendly and outgoing like other people are, but
I've always been a very shy person, and whenever I get in a group I
just clam up and don't say anything. Can God change my personality? Or
is this the way I'll always be, because it's the way He made me? --
D.E.
A: I'm glad God didn't make us all exactly alike, aren't you? Think how boring the world would be if we all had exactly the same abilities and personalities! But we don't -- and that's the way God meant it to be. The writer of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament declared, "He has made everything beautiful in its time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
In other words, don't spend all your time wishing you were someone else, or yearning for something God didn't intend you to have. God knows what you're like, and He loves you just as you are. In today's terms we'd probably label the Apostle Peter an extrovert, because he was always taking charge and speaking his mind. Paul's young companion Timothy, on the other hand, was apparently shy, and Paul had to urge him not to let others dominate him (see 1 Timothy 4:12). Yet God used them both.
Ask God to help you overcome your shyness and become the person He wants you to be. Take steps -- perhaps just a few at first -- to reach out to others. Get involved in a Bible study or volunteer group in your church, and ask God to help you make a contribution to it, both by what you say and what you do.
In addition, ask God to help you discover the gifts He has given you. Quiet people, for example, often make good listeners, and that can be of great benefit to people with burdens.
========
Send your queries to "My Answer," c/o Billy Graham, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, 1 Billy Graham Parkway, Charlotte, N.C., 28201; call 1-(877) 2-GRAHAM, or visit the Web site for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association: www.billygraham.org.
(c)2008 BILLY GRAHAM DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
This news arrived on: 11/07/2009
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Posted Comments:
11-07-2009 06:48
Elias Mhegera wrote:
Can God Change My Personality
Thank you Rev. Graham just two days ago I was counselling a girl who is a university graduate but she is so timid and wanted to be empowered so Iwill just forward this message to her,
Thanks again and let the Almighty God bless you more!
Elias Mhegera
Thanks again and let the Almighty God bless you more!
Elias Mhegera
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