Does your voice matter? Do your words count? Do your thoughts, ideas, opinions?
When I think about being influential, I think of how things affect me and mine. Does another person have the power to change my mind...look at a situation from another perspective...stir me to action? Can an op-ed prick my conscience so sharply, stir my soul so deeply, I am compelled to pray for the writer? his or her concerns? Or does a writer's words simply cause a yawn to claim my mind?
Depending upon the situation, every single person has influence. For instance, I have plans today to get some writing assignments completed. Yet, if my 6-year-old granddaughter asks her momma to call me and see if she can come over and play, I am more than likely going to find her request quite a compelling force upon my heart and time. Some things are just more important than others; tea parties, painting birdhouses, and swinging in my hammock with my grandchildren are such things.
Influence only has the power another gives it. We do not have to be influenced by others--their words or their actions. However, when their ideas and views line up with our own, they are more than likely going to draw us beneath their wings of thought. We're apt to find ourselves subscribing to their blog-feed. Some writers have only one influence upon me---they make me mad everytime I read their words. This kind of influence compels me to one action--ignore them. I do not read their blogs, I do not listen to their opinions of another's writing or words. If I have a minimal amount of respect for a writer or their views, I tend to skip their comments in a stream.
I admit it. I am not influenced by what many people write--even when others claim them to be influential. Nevertheless, just because I don't think someone is influential--just because I do not agree with them, and view their influence as nothing but a growling rottweiler, a slobbering bulldog, or a yapping chihuahua, does not negate the fact that they may indeed influence others. Just because I am annoyed by a barking hound--does not mean that dog won't hunt and bring home the game to the doorstep of others...just as surely as my newspaper man delivers my newspaper each morning. I may never pick up the paper. I may never click on a highly-trafficked link; it doesn't change the fact that others are most certainly influenced in some way--good or bad, positively or negatively--when they do.
As Christians who blog, we must therefore, weigh our words, and bring our thoughts into the captivity of Christ to use as He sees fit. In the end, no matter how man judges us, the Judge most worthy of consideration is Jesus. He'll have the final word, no matter what you or I say. selahV
