Who Are You Influencing?

Have you ever stopped to think about your influence? Who do you influence and how do you influence those around you? Do you know that even if you aren't trying you are still influencing others?

Just by showing up to work, a school event, the breakfast table, the grocery store, the gas station you are influencing others with your words and with your actions. That influence could have a lasting impact on the people you come in contact with. So I ask you, how are you influencing people? Are you intentional about how you interact with those in your sphere of influence or do you just leave it to chance?

Who are you impacting?

A couple of years ago I was included in a group of people that had the opportunity to go to a two day leadership conference. I am going to be honest with you, I sat there and took notes, but I had a hard time identifying what God really wanted me to take away from this event. It was good information, but I was having a hard time applying it to what I felt God had called me to do with couples.

The concept was centered around Kingdom building, raising leaders up so you could send them out. It focused on not holding too tightly to those that we have invested in, but allowing God to lead them and celebrate when God moves in their lives. All good stuff, but I was having a hard time connecting that to how I help couples do marriage well.

Then it hit me!

The focus of the conference soon became an integral part of how I view life and what I do with couples.

Do you see yourself as a kingdom builder in your relationship? In your family? As a wife? A mother? A human? Because here is the deal, it doesn’t really matter whether you see yourself as a kingdom builder or not, because you are. By default when you said I do, when you accepted the responsibility of raising little ones, when you started breathing, you became a kingdom builder. Now whose kingdom you are building, that you can decide.

Are you listening to God’s directing, reading his word, and applying it to your family in a way that you can be considered a kingdom builder for God. Have you stopped to think that the little people that you are currently raising will some day be out in the world and responsible for building God’s kingdom?

For your husband, are you surrounding him with prayer daily? Are you encouraging him to go out and do what God has in store for him? Are you allowing him to lead your family and listen to God’s voice?

For your kids, are you raising leaders so that they can go out and be the builders of God’s kingdom? Are you putting God’s principles first so that they will be prepared for their day, as they lead the people in their influence? Are you praying for them as they discover what God has for them in their future? Are you modeling healthy boundaries and spiritual practices?

When we begin to see ourselves, in our everyday life, as ambassadors for a King, it changes everything. It changes the way you communicate on line, the way you talk to your kids, your husband, your neighbor, the pushy lady in line at the grocery store...

It changes everything.

What if as you read this you realized you have not been intentional in the way you influence those around you?

Let me tell you a little story, and give you some hope if you feel that you haven’t been purposeful up to this point.

There once was a young wife and mother to three small children. She was a good woman, but she was not purposefully building God’s kingdom with her children or her family.

Until one day.

One day there was a knock on her front door and who should be at the door but one of God’s very own kingdom builders.

Well, it was the Avon lady, but let me tell you this Avon lady came into this lady’s living room and not only did she sell her toilet water but living water. She shared God’s truth with her and changed her life and the life of her family forever. From that moment on, that lady taught her husband and her children about this God she had met through the traveling cosmetics sales person and they all came to know Him.

One of her children (that woman’s daughter) met a man who she fell in love with and she introduced him to his savior. He accepted Jesus into his life and they married and raised three handsome sons, who all made Christ the center of their lives. They too married and raised children who put their faith in Jesus. So out of that one woman, who started her kingdom building a little late, 21 people and counting came to know the Lord and put their trust in Him. And that lady was my husband’s grandmother. I owe her a thank you because I was one of those 21 people that if it hadn’t been for her kingdom building, I do not know that I would be where I am today.

So, I'll ask you one more time, who are you influencing? And are you influencing them in the way that sets them on a positive trajectory, or are you misusing your influence and sending them on a path of uncertainty?