Entries (RSS)By virtue of the fact that most of us live in communities surrounded by people we interact with on a number of levels each day, each of us exert a certain measure of influence over our circumstances and relationships. In this most general sense I believe that we all bear responsibility for the good or evil influence we have in this world, but that is not what I am talking about in this blog. I am talking about what happens when influence becomes a decision we make, when influence becomes intentional and strategic. I am talking about what influence looks like when it is married to commitment.
I recently read Steven Pressfield’s book, the WAR of ART. Over half of the book is devoted to one subject, resistance. Pressfield employs the word resistance in order to anthropomorphize (yes that is a real word) that insidious something that meets us every day in the places where we can decide to have real, intentional, influence, but don’t. It meets us for only one reason, to prevent us from making that decision at any cost. It will beat us down, paralyze us with fear or doubt, negotiate with us, cajole us, threaten us, accuse us or distract us. And if none of that works, it will enlist people to help.
One quote from Pressfield’s book stood out for me. It was taken from W.H. Murray’s The Scottish Himalayan Expedition: “Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.”
I am currently teaching on the sixteenth century Reformation and last night I was speaking about Martin Luther. Regardless of whether you personally/religiously appreciate Luther or despise him, the one thing you cannot do is deny his influence on his world and ours. No one can know the influence their life is going to have. No one can predict whether or not their decisions are going to change the world. No one knows whether or not their plans will succeed or if future generations will bless or curse them. Luther could not have known any of these things when he made the decisions he made in the face of continual resistance, but we do know based on the historical record that he continued to make decisions in the same direction day after day: the 95 Theses, meeting Cardinal Cajetan, the Leipzig Debate, his 3 treatises of 1520, the Diet of Worms etc. etc. etc.
That is in esssence what I mean when I say, influence is a decision. I am tempted day after day to not have real influence in the places where I live and work, to not decide, to not commit, to not offer the best of who I am to the people around me because of all the reasons that resistence provides. But what if it’s true? What if at the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too?