Becoming a Person of Character Through Divine Guidance

"these days we're talking about what matters most in the words of a very wise man the main thing God gets out of your life it's not what you do it's not how you look it's not what you own it's the person you become and that's mostly my character what kind of a heart am I someone who genuinely loves and is deeply honest and brings joy to people around me and lives with humility and of course that's really hard work so we can't do that on our own so we need help with it and we're talking about that today with Roger Brotherton a clinical psychologist uh expert in lots and lots of fields deep thinker about character and virtue and spiritual life and so so Roger thanks for coming back on" [00:01:17]

"there's lots of different lists that folks have made of Virtues in the past uh you work particularly with one framework virtues in action and they will list 24 different virtues which will include things like gratitude curiosity creativity humility perseverance love kindness compassion and there's other lists that have been generated over the years uh those 24 character strengths in turn can be uh lumped under six different virtues I can imagine somebody listening to this and thinking I'm exhausted like I already got too much stuff to do today I got a job uh I got relationships to manage I got money to worry about I got bills to pay I got chores to do and now you're gonna tell me there's like 24 different character items I got to feel guilty about uh before I could feel okay about myself" [00:02:06]

"and you were talking about a distinction between in the Bible biblical writers would sometimes talk about works you know um Good Deeds or what are thought to be good deeds and that often will try to do often will try to generate enough willpower to do them on our own and we will just face that problem of I know the good stuff I ought to be doing but it's overwhelming I'm tempted to do other stuff isn't there a better way uh helpless with that one for people that feel overwhelmed or exhausted right now how how should we be thinking about this yeah you know you know I get this one a lot John I some people will look at this as a list of 24 strengths and I go oh man 24 new things for my to-do list that's the last thing I need exactly and that that's not how to read that list" [00:03:17]

"so firstly let me just it's not you must build these things as we've discussed before it's kind of which of these are you already and how do you develop that further but just to to identify more closely I I guess the the section of scripture that really speaks to me on this is when Paul contrasts The Works of the Flesh and the Fruit of the Spirit you know in that passage in in uh Philippines isn't it um and um but it's Galatians actually just otherwise sorry do you know do you know why I always get these there's a past this passage in Galatians of passage in Philippians but I always get mixed up and the reason I get them mixed up is because basically there's the passage in Philippians that's about thinking about good things uh highly on mine and good things that all the beautiful things he lists there and then the passing Galatians that sort of lists the fruit of the spirit and I I always get those two lists mixed up so yeah I I'm not perfect John sorry about that well and clearly I have work to do on humility so we can just we can just keep going but great great great work on correction that's fine that's good so um so that passage in Galatians" [00:04:02]

"um where it contrasts works as a profession you get all these terrible things listed that um I mean it's a horrible list and it goes on for ages and um we don't want any of those things in our life but they probably make quite a good episode of Game of Thrones or something like that you know that's what you want there you know that's what it would be um but what always strikes me about those two lists what's the flesh and then fruit of the spirit is firstly that works of the flesh is plural it has this idea that these are things we're doing so when I betray people when I jockey for position when I envy other people when I get lustful there's always this sense of I'm trying to do something to get something straight away it has a very sort of short-term element to it and if you really think about how life works if I were to live by those momentary appetites all the time I would become completely fragmented as a person pursuing this now that then the other thing there um without really think about what the whole thing that holds it all together what's fascinating when we get to fruit of the spirit is it's not fruits of the spirit it's fruit of the spirit it's this single idea that if you have the spirit then peace kindness self-control love all these things come together in a Unity a Harmony something that holds it all together in one place" [00:05:23]

"and so when I think about um character when I think about character strengths I'm not thinking about here's a whole pile of fragmentary things to an already overstuffed strangely motivated to-do list I I'm actually really thinking about what's your to be list who who would you become if you I'm sorry what's your to be list yeah forget your to-do list yeah we all have those who are you supposed to be becoming um at the core of your soul what is there um and and so the fruit of the spirit is this sort of ideas we follow the spirit we get that's the unity and all these things are carried in that that following in in that Pursuit um and I just find that a really really beautiful way to think about and it's also sort of backed up by a lot of modern Neuroscience as well so if you listen to sort of um uh sort of interpersonal developmental neuropsychology one of the things that we'll talk about a lot is that the brain is a social organ that constantly seeks harmony it wants Harmony between short-term and long-term it wants Harmony between emotion and um reason you know that the the brain is basically seeking to balance all these things out and it functions beautifully when it all works in Harmony and so they given that we were talking about spiritual practices last time one of my spiritual practicing is that notion of centering prayer of sort of returning to God over and over and over to get as he he is my single loving place of attentiveness and when we do that what I tend to find is that this sort of wild world of my mind that often feels like a classroom of children all sort of with their hands in the air jostling for for my attention um they settle and they quiet and then suddenly something that sounded like a cacophony starts to sound just a bit more like a Harmony" [00:06:46]

"um and for me that's what where that's what all this development of character head stores don't get stuck on how do I do X Y and Z get stuck on who is the center of all of that and as we focus on him and hold that in attentiveness how how do we find all these other things develop around it just one the the thing I always find fascinating about the development of character is usually we develop the character first and we spot it afterwards I'm gonna say there was a moment of humility wait a minute I was really kind there man I didn't expect I'd be that disciplined today etc etc and I find all the time that usually most of our virtue is worthless to begin with because it just sort of comes from a inner being it just comes from a sense of Harmony and connectedness to the world and then afterwards we might label it I I love that I was reading uh uh kind of coaching on uh virtue acquisition and the person was talking about how important it is uh to name you know here I practiced um uh the character strength of prudence when I carefully planned the meal I was going to have or something and I found myself with two responses to it one it sounds like yep it's a good thing to label those things on the other hand it can feel real self-conscious and kind of look at me and I'm being so virtuous so that notion that often it starts without words and it's something that's kind of organic and like with that notion of fruit of the spirit it's not like trees have to try really hard to grow apples or peaches fruit is kind of the byproduct of the presence of life and that it brings us back to what you said before about uh really at the core I want to practice uh uh the presence being present to the presence in the present moment and that if I'm really being aware of and present to God in this moment then the food comes" [00:08:29]

"and it's such a fascinating thing isn't it and it's so lovely in in the way that that develops um I and the other thing I I think about as well is that when Paul and this one definitely is in Philippians so Philippians 4 8 when Paul lists you know here are the things to think about where there's true Noble right pure lovely honorable think about these things so he's saying firstly focus on them but the bit we don't often focus on quite as much as the next verse where he says and as you've seen these in me imitate them and clearly Paul was not shy to say listen here's me being loving here's me being kind here's me being grateful nothing to be proud of these are the works of God in Me as they are yeah but if you want to develop those things the best thing you can possibly do is ask who in my communities really wise who's really hopeful who's really grateful who's really passionate who's really forgiving who's really humble and we go let's just watch them and let's copy what they do that allows them to do that um and I think that's what he's saying is like these his own badges to wear like I'm a Cub Scout he's really proud of myself yeah these are just what what we become when we're following God and very often by accident I love that so let's do that today everybody watching this take a moment right now and think of somebody and it might be a very good friend it might be a teacher that you had uh it might be uh a dad or a mum um it might be a brother or a sister um who's somebody that you have seen the fruit love joy peace patience and so on in think about that person think about how you admire them think about how good it would be to be more that way yourself and see if you can imitate them today and ask what they might do" [00:11:02]