Your Personality + His Spirit, part 1 out of 5: Intro

http://www.historyofphrenology.org.uk/images/temperaments.jpg

 The ancient Greeks originally thought that the Four Temperaments were four fluids in each person's body! The dominating fluid would determine a person's appearance AND personality. This is a picture of the four temperaments. Go to http://www.historyofphrenology.org.uk/temperament.htm   for more information on the history of this belief. 

I love personality tests. It's kinda weird, but I find it so captivating to analyze why other people act the way they do based on their personalities. There is one personality test that I have found particularly interesting called the "Four Temperaments Test". In case you aren't familiar with this certain analysis of people's personalities, let me fill you in quickly.

There are four different temperaments in this test (obviously).

Here they are:

http://sr.photos3.fotosearch.com/bthumb/CSP/CSP481/k4814743.jpg

1. Choleric- this personality type is the LEADER. They are domineering, persevering, and passionate. Unfortunately, sometimes they can be a little too passionate with their cause, sometimes hurting others in the process by running over them with their fervor.

https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/blogs/68543/2012/07/101932-99274.jpg

2. Sanguine- One way of describing this personality type is the "party animal". They are sociable, LOUD, and fun to be around, always enjoying making new friends and going to group gatherings. But, they also dislike any place that isn't fun, so if they start a new activity or hobby, their excitement for it dies quickly and they usually abandon it. This makes it difficult for sanguines to get to appointments on time or to finish tasks.

http://spanish.fansshare.com/gallery/photos/12172869/winnie-the-pooh-wallpaper-disney/?displaying

3. Phlegmatic- Pooh Bear is a phlegmatic. Phlegmatic people are happy-go-lucky, easygoing, and accepting of everyone. They are also very peaceful and relaxed, not getting their feathers ruffled over much. Their weakness however, is laziness, since they lack motivation and enthusiasm.

http://www.fineallart.com/images/Louis-Jean-Francois%20Lagrenee/Melancholy_undated_1041.jpg

4. Melancholy- These people are the deep, passionate thinkers who are independent, existing solely in their own worlds, being able to pay attention to small details because of their analytical nature. But, they are also the type of people who tend to get lost in themselves, usually buried in pessimism and discouragement. Melancholies lean towards depression and selfishness.

So, there they are: the four temperaments. In case you were wondering, I am a melancholy. I can pick out small details in life and write whole blog posts about them for crying out loud! And I am powered enough by my own thoughts to just sit here for about thirty minutes and write silently, alone in my room. And I just wrote three entire sentences about MYSELF, I guess this is a fourth one too.

Hopefully, you get the point now. But, now what? Well, there are four more posts about these personality tests. Yup, you guessed it; I'm going to be talking about each of these personality types. I am also going to be discussing how God's spirit can really change us, even beyond the bounds of our personalities. Because, as sinners, we will all fall towards the negative aspects of our personality types. The cholerics will bulldoze over everyone around them. The sanguines fall into trouble because of their endless pursuits for fun and pleasure. The phlegmatics will never do well in anything or follow through with anything because of their apathy and indifference to life. The melancholies will crush their own spirits with negativity and INTENSE self-centeredness. Sounds terrible, doesn't it?
But 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"

That's the great news; God can work through us to increase the strengths in each and every one of our personalities and use our weaknesses to change us and glorify Him.

These four temperaments are not perfect cookie-cutter descriptions of everyone, but since all of us are sinners, it can be assumed that all of us have chronic weaknesses, and they probably have something to do with each of our personalities. So, I hope that the next few posts will help you not only start to understand your fellow human beings, but understand YOURSELF better. If you're a melancholy, you're probably looking forward to the latter part of this statement. If you're a choleric, you're excited about the former part of the statement, since it will give you information about why everyone else has such a difficult time doing the RIGHT thing :) If you're a sanguine, you probably got this far into the blog because of the entertaining pictures you got to look at and now that there's this patch of writing with no interesting pictures to accompany it, you are starting to zone out. If you're a phlegmatic, congratulations for getting past the first paragraph! Only a few more sentences, okay? You can do it!

So, now, in case you are dying to know which temperament you are, here is a website with which to test yourself.
http://personality-testing.info/tests/4T.php
I'm sorry about the random survey thing at the end of the quiz. Since I'm having fun discussing these personalities, I am going to predict what you are probably going to do with the random survey thing, based on your personality. 
If you are a choleric, it will annoy you A LOT that you have to answer a survey before you get to have your results, so you will probably just pick a random answer so you can FINISH THE TEST.
 If you are a sanguine, the question for the survey will sidetrack you and you'll start thinking about potato chips (or whatever the question was about) instead of your survey results.
If you are a phlegmatic, you probably won't even finish the test itself. Even if you do finish it, the random survey will throw you off and you probably will assume that it takes to much time to fill out one stupid question and just give up the entire endeavor.
If you are a melancholy, you will read through all of the questions for the survey and answer carefully, then spend the next five minutes wondering why in the world they asked you that question and how the website will put your answer to use (that's what I did... just saying)

Anyway, this has been fun, and I hope you enjoy my next few posts as I find verses and applications for each personality type, tell you a few of my favorite cartoon characters and famous people that possess each specific temperament, and interview four Godly women that I really look up to (one for each temperament) and ask them how their personality applies to their faith.

Hope you enjoy!