Infinite Influence

 Do you think of yourself as an influential person?  I think most of us would say no.  Not in the way the world defines influential, anyway.  Most of us aren’t quoted in the newspaper or on the evening news.  We’re not in People Magazine.  But, I believe though, that we need to re-think that. 

If you’re a parent, think back to when your kids were just learning to walk and talk.  Did you ever listen in on their games and hear your exact words, right down to tone and inflection, coming out of your child’s mouth?  You had an influence on your child’s language development.  YIKES!

As we finish up with Solomon and Ecclesiastes this next week, we’d have to agree that he was an extremely influential person…he was the most powerful man of his time, right?  Think of the power for good he could have been if he had stayed true to what he knew was right.  Instead, he was influenced by the women in his life, and drifted away from God.  And, even though he ultimately returned to walk with God, he couldn’t take back what he had already done.  Mrs. White says this:

“Solomon’s repentance was sincere; but the harm that his example of evil-doing had wrought could not be undone…“His influence for good was greatly weakened. …he could never hope entirely to destroy the baleful influence of his wrong deeds…“Among the many lessons taught by Solomon’s life, none is more strongly emphasized than the power of influence for good or for ill.  However contracted may be our sphere, we still exert an influence for weal or woe.  Beyond our knowledge or control, it tells upon others in blessing or cursing…“That our influence should be a savor of death unto death is a earful thought, yet it is possible.  One soul misled, forfeiting eternal bliss—who can estimate the loss!  And yet, one rash act, one thoughtless word, on our part may exert so deep an influence on the life of another that it will prove the ruin of his soul.” Prophets and Kings,pp84,85

When I was teaching, I was always amazed that no matter how many times I explained a task or assignment correctly, if I misspoke in some way and gave some wrong information, just one time, that’s the part my students remembered.  Even when I corrected myself and explained the mistake, the students never got that particular thing right.  The wrong sticks in our heads soooo much better than the right does.  Isn’t that frustrating?

Doug Bachelor has a sermon about influence and in it he reminds us that no matter where we are or what we are doing, we are influencing somebody for either good or bad.  We have no neutral ground…ever!

So, are you, am I, an influential person?  The answer is absolutely!  A few years ago, I taught with a woman who proclaimed often and loudly that she was an atheist.  We taught together every single day for three years.  I have to say at the beginning, it was pretty rough, and we really got on each other’s nerves.  One day, in the middle of one of our fights, someone reminded me that it is impossible to hate someone you pray for.  That struck a nerve, so, grudgingly I started to pray for her.  Nothing grand, just, “Lord, help her to be nicer.”  By the way, I wasn’t being nice either.  We were equally guilty.  Actually, I was probably more guilty because I know what Jesus would have done in the same situation, and I was NOT doing it…or even attempting it. 

Anyway, something frightening happened over the next three years; we became absolutely best friend, and she was baptized into the Adventist church.  I say frightening because when we talked about what had led her to be interested in learning more, she explained that it was because she had watched me over the years and had seen something there that she wanted in her own life.  WHOA!!!  I started rewinding those years to find out what I had done/not done that would have shown anything worth wanting and what I saw was not what I would describe as good.  I hadn’t witnessed to her; I hadn’t even invited her to church.  I think the only time we ever discussed anything even remotely Biblical was to argue about evolution vs. creation.  And yet, she did come to church.  Amen!

 

Now I know that the Holy Spirit is in charge of these things (Praise the Lord), and that my friend just thought she was seeing me and was really being led by the Holy Spirit. 

But that sense of responsibility has never left me.  I’m not saying that I always exert the best, or even the right, influence, but when I remember that experience, I am awed at the power of one person watching another person.  I’m also terrified.  What a huge responsibility!

Think about the week that just ended.  What kind of influence have you been?  What kind of influence have I been?  Can I be better this coming week?  What do I need to do differently?  God is longing for us to ask exactly those kinds of questions, because He has so much He wants to give us.

“He longs to give you understanding in temporal as well as in spiritual matters.  He can sharpen the intellect.  He can give tact and skill.  Put your talents into the work, ask God for wisdom, and it will be given you.”  E.G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 146

What makes you happy?

Do you know?  Have you spent a lot of time looking for what makes you happy?  Some people do.  Some people don’t do anything else.  Have you ever known anybody like that?  Solomon was kind of like that.  Searching for happiness became a lifetime quest.   Do you think he found it?

Even with all his wisdom, Solomon looked for happiness in pretty much all the same places that us poor, not-wise people do – education, power, love, fun, food, money…Individually, probably none of us looks in all the places that Solomon did, but, then again, he was a king, he could look everywhere!  Actually, though, I think most of us are doing our best to keep up with Solomon. We have lots of places we can look for happiness.

To make things harder, almost everything in our American “post-Christian” culture screams at us to do more, to buy more, to eat more, to play more.  Look at the commercials on TV – during the day, the ads tell you that this school can help you get the job that will make you happy, or that this lawyer can get you money because someone else has made you unhappy.  In the evening, the ad-writers really get pushy!  You have to drive this car.  You have to drink this drink.  You have to eat at this restaurant.  Just put “happiness” into your favorite search engine and you will find literally millions of hits with titles like: “Finding True Happiness and Self-Actualization”, “Authentic Happiness: Using the new Positive Psychology”, and “How to Be Happy and Have Fun Changing the World”.   Better yet, I found out that there is such a thing as “Gross National Happiness” listed on Wikipedia, about which there are international conferences (three so far).  You’ll also be glad to learn that there is a map of global happiness where you can find out where your country ranks on the continuum of Subjective Well-being (a fancy way of saying “happiness”).  Oh, and this brilliant statement, “Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.”  And, of course, this one, “True happiness lies within you.”  Uh-huh.  Anyway, the google search was pretty funny, in general, but also kind of sad.  There are entire organizations devoted completely to defining, finding and quantifying happiness, and, although I didn’t actually check all 55,500,000 hits, not one of the ones I check made any mention of God.  Doesn’t look like we’ve learned much in the all the years between Solomon and today.  Ouch!

When we say we’re looking for happiness, what are we really looking for?  Because happiness, in and of itself, is pretty easy to find, on a moment-by-moment basis.  I mean, an ice cream cone can make me happy.  So does a Marx brothers’ movie, a really good book, a new outfit, and laughing with my family.  So, I’m thinking maybe happiness isn’t the right word for what we’re looking for.  It’s just not a big enough concept.  We’re looking for something higher and deeper and more lasting than happiness.  I think we’re looking for the  “…peace of God, which passeth all understanding, …” Philippians 4:7, and “…a glorious joy that can't be put into words.” 1 Peter 1:8

Those are two things I don’t think you’ll find at the international conference on Gross National Happiness or within yourself.  Those are things that can only come from God.  And I think that’s what Solomon learned and was writing about in Ecclesiastes – there is no happiness or joy or peace outside of a relationship with God. 

Is it possible for us to learn that lesson any other way than experientially?  Can we learn from Solomon, from reading Ecclesiastes?  Or must we each find our own way by stumbling through all of the temporary, earthly happiness traps that Satan sets for us?  Logically, I have to believe that if we weren’t meant to learn from the experiences in the Bible stories, then they wouldn’t be in there! 

So where does that leave us? 

Hopefully, we’re not following the cereal ads and soft drink ads, looking for something as transient as happiness, when what our hearts are really longing for – what Solomon finally realized he couldn’t go on without – is the joy and peace of knowing Jesus as a friend and an advocate.  No amount of experiencing, conferencing or discussing the paths to happiness will get us to where we want to be.  “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33

Whatever

Have you seen it?  The head-bob and the eye-roll?  You, the adult, have just said something that your teen has deemed – uh, less than intelligent or, at least, not pertinent to his or her current life situation.  I hate to admit, though, that I have also performed that little operation as well.  Usually just in my head, though.

But what is it that makes “WHATEVER” so incredibly infuriating?  Is it the palpable boredom? Apathy? Disdain? Disrespect?    The “I care so little about what you’re telling me that I can’t be bothered to argue about it” attitude?  All of the above? 

I think that’s kind of Solomon’s attitude toward everything in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes.  “I did it all; I have it all; I know it all; and it’s all boring.”  But how did Solomon get to that point?  I mean, he knew God; he knew what God wanted from His people, and, somehow, it wasn’t enough.

Aren’t we, as Americans, in the same place as Solomon?  We have so much that we’ve become bored with everything.  We know what God wants from us, but we can’t be bothered to do it.  Apathy…the malady of the post-Christian world.

I heard the term “post-Christian” used several years ago.  I’m not sure I really understood what it meant at the time, just that it was describing “the modern age”.  But in the last couple of years, that term has popped into my mind more and more often.  Then, when the boys and I went to Scotland this Thanksgiving, I really got it.  I read several articles this week about what “post-christian” means to other people, and it was all pretty disturbing and sad. 

I could really feel it in Scotland.  We were surrounded by all of this history, these beautiful old castles, museums, and churches.  The castles are protected and restored.  The museums carefully kept.  But the churches are nightclubs and movie theaters.  In one of the articles I read this week, I learned that less than 5% of the population of England attend church regularly.  I couldn’t find the statistics for the US, but I hope we’ve got more than 5%!!  That is SO sad, though, isn’t it?

Post-Christianity was mentioned in magazine articles in about 1962.  Imagine how much more post Christianity we are now!  YIKES!  According to Nathan Glazer,

  “…religion has suffered crushing blows and plays a completely different role in the world today [1957] from that which it played only a hundred years ago. 

“The great change is that hardly any significant number of people now interpret life in the terms proposed by the major religions.  They no longer live for salvation, no matter how defined, but for life on this earth, in this world, interpreted in purely non-religious terms.”  Nathan Glazer, American Judaism 

There’s a big problem with that whole way of thinking, though.  If we live for today only, like Solomon did for a while, and we no longer think in terms of salvation, then we have that “God-shaped-vacuum” that we, as humans, need to fill.  Satan has an infinite number of substitutes that he wants us to try to fit into that vacuum.

One of the biggies is the new age movement.  Instead of the God of Heaven, we can become gods on our own.  So, if we are our own gods, then we can decide what is right and wrong for ourselves.  That clears the way for moral relativism where even truth as an absolute is rejected.  Follow that trail, as many do today, and we end up being our own lawgiver, priest, therapist and best friend.  Do we need anybody else at that point?  In one of the articles I read this week, I found this:

“Americans have adopted a therapeutic worldview which has transformed all issues of right and wrong into newly created categories of authenticity, self-esteem, codependencies, and various psychological fads which basically tell us that we are victims, not responsible moral agents.  A cult of self-worship has developed, substituting a search for the inner child in place of the worship of the transcendent God.”  R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Transforming Culture:  Christian Truth Confronts Post-Christian America

We get all wrapped up in trying to fill the holes in our lives with anything we can find and trusting in our own power and wisdom. And that’s where we find Solomon in Ecclesiastes.  Ellen White says that Ecclesiastes 

“was written by Solomon in his old age, after he had fully proved that all the pleasures earth is able to give are empty and unsatisfying.  He there shows how impossible it is for the vanities of the world to meet the longings of the soul.”  3BC1164.6

Is it any wonder that Solomon sounds really depressed and fatalistic in Ecclesiastes?    He finally learned that without God, there really isn’t any point in anything.

Jesus is pleading with us, calling us back to the Father, reminding us of how much He loves us and all He’s done to save us.  He has tears in His eyes and nail scars in His hands and feet… 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”  Matthew 23:37

Could you really shake your head and roll your eyes and say, “Whatever…”?