Taking On the Fruits of the Spirit

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Galatians 5:22). These are the characteristics of a healthy personality.

If anyone knew how to itemize principles, it was Carl Rogers. An example of such is what Rogers referred to as "statements of significant learnings," and the following is just one example of those: "In my relationships with persons I have found that it does not help, in the long run, to act as though I were something I am not."1

Rogers went on to discuss the need to trust the self. This is important in interpreting an event presenting itself. The person, not the facts, holds the key to an individual’s future. Facts and events do not dictate conclusions. Rather, they carry meanings for people to discover.

Behaviors are conducted according to how a person anticipates events. Perhaps this is a basis to the many problems facing society today: It is simply a macrocosm, a sociological example, of the individual personality. The human is results-oriented: In other words, expediency rules the day. The human is anarchistic by nature and bent toward chaos.

Individual differences of interpretation is a major reason for this. A person’s beliefs, and assumptions have a major impact on the perception, recall, and interpretation of events.

The result, then, composes differences of interpretation. A number of individuals, for instance, may be observing a fact, or phenomenon, and the resulting number of interpretations of that phenomenon may well equal the number of observing individuals. With that as a launchpad, as it were, humans make decisions based on their own predictions, which are funneled through their own interpretations, which are based substantially on past experiences, both in education and conditioning.

A healthy personality is composed of many aspects and facets. The primary one may be the ability to conform its unique perspectives, borne of the realization that they are indeed unique. If we, then can come to the conclusion that we are as different to others as they are to us, then we will have a better chance of taking on the characteristics listed in the first sentence of this discussion.


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