by Candace Cortez
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day! I am always grateful
for the fact that we set aside days of the year to specifically honor and
celebrate valuable parts of our life, faith, and community. As I sit and
prepare myself to honor my own mother and mother-in-law this weekend, I try to
gather the words to describe my feelings for how they have influenced my life.
Influence is a powerful thing. I believe the
desire and capacity to have influence is a part of our heritage as humans.
There is something universal in recognizing the desire to help, do something
worthwhile, or make a change for the better. The slippery slope is when we
begin to equate the amount of influence we have as the amount of value we have:
if we have more influence we are more valuable. I believe the Lord thinks
differently. He values us as His children. After creating Adam and Eve, God
said it is “very good.” We people are the only portion of creation to receive
this additional emphasis. Everything else, light, water, sky, animals, the sun
and stars, we all called “good.” The crazy thing is, God called us “very good”
without Adam or Eve actually stepping into their calling to influence this
world. He loved them and approved of them because He made them, not because
they had a massive influence on the cultivation of the plants or the naming of
the animals.
None of what you just read is the point of this
writing effort, but I genuinely believe we cannot hear that enough. So there it
is.
Influence is a powerful thing. It’s powerful because
there are people whose actions and words have had a great influence on the way
I think and behave and I can guarantee that they have no clue of that influence
on me. The ability to have an effect on another person can be negative or
positive, known or unknown. Proverbs 13:20 reads “Whoever walks with the wise
becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” I have done some
pretty dumb things at the prompting of other immature people. Gratefully I’ve
lived to tell about it! I hope to become one of the wise and not the fool in
this proverb. The way to become one of the wise is to recognize, honor, and
gather your influence from the right people.
Recognizing positive influencers, or wise
influencers is a matter of fruit and character. You will know a person’s
character by watching their reactions over time in different situations. You
will see a person’s fruit as the results of their effort. Sometimes, we are
fooled by shiny, temporary results that are actually unhealthy fruit that takes
time to reveal itself as shallow or fabricated. Be careful to not be impressed
primarily by things like wealth, physical appearances, or physical talents.
Honoring influence simply means dedicating
importance to that person’s behavior or words. The examples set by those you
recognize as your influence is worthy of study or replication. Another step
could even be giving recognition and gratitude for that person being a wise or
loving example in your life. (ie: mother’s day, recognizing mom’s; some of the
greatest influencers out there!)
Gathering influence sounds a bit creepy. Like
storing all these amazing wise examples of humanity in my backyard or
something. But really it is a phrase of proximity. If I want to be positively
influenced by people I’ve recognized within my world, I need to get in places
where I can hear them, witness their example, and learn from them. This could
be as simple as following a podcast, to as intimate as asking for a
conversation over coffee.
Ask yourself: are you influenced by the wise or
the fools? And then, those who hear and see you, are they being influenced by
the wise? Or a fool? Say thank you to a mom, any mom this weekend. Honor an
influencer you see loving well today.
