We need to be reminded that we do not pass through life’s span without influencing others, and influenced by others. I have heard several stories of women who gave birth to stillborn babies – dead at birth. The experiences brought out a range of responses that were poignant. One mother began a movement to comfort women who faced the heart wrenching experience. Those infant dead were nothing to the world, but gave, for some mothers, a life changing attitude toward themselves and what they would do with some of the time of their lives. They learned that the experience wasn’t lost to life meaning and activity.
I was arrested in my spirit when after more than forty years I was invited back to a special anniversary for a church I had served while a student in college. The chairman of the committee on that Sunday morning asked how many persons had joined the congregation under each pastor present. I was the most distant of attending former pastors. My surprise and sense of gratitude leaped when a number of persons raised their hands. I thought my influence was so far distant that only a very few would respond. Many hands were raised. There was a meaning that I had not felt in the more than forty years since I was there. Each of the pastors that followed received marked evidence of his ministry, and its lasting effect, that was elaborated on in later conversations. This type of evidence can be listed and detailed in experiences too numerous to report. The point is made that each of us does influence others. What is the meaning? What are the results? How can I be sure I will be pleased to present it as my gift to God in service, to account for my life, and justify the purposes he gave me, permitting long life? His legal tender is determined in the investment in persons, the recognized associates as life assistants motivated by his love and work.
As adults our first duty in the process relates to our families, beginning with the family cell of mates and children, but reaching out to other family members as well. There is no apology that we favor our families over others. From the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and the patriarchs, through Israel and the philosophy of the family in the New Testament, the importance of the family as favored to us is clear. The Apostle Paul makes the point related to ministers who might be distracted from their families by the needs of others. (Note: Titus) There is balance for those who are in ministry as favored by mankind and God. (Galatians 6:10; 1 Timothy 5:17) So we begin with those closest to us, in intimacy and daily life, with a conscious program that influences them for good and God. If what one is doing is not working to achieve purpose there ought to be careful review that whatever is missing is to be accounted for either first in what I am doing, or second, in the resistance, whether peacefully or angrily, in those I am supposed to influence. From the lessons learned in the intimate roles, we reach out to love, serve and relate to others. To be kind and meaningful to those I see often, teaches me to be kind and meaningful to those I seldom see. In this process the effort is sincere rather than simply good business. In reverse order it is not genuine.
Many persons turn the process around. They walk backwards. They treat the distant person with more grace than the intimate. It is a part of the rebellion of mankind, unless addressed, and divine order is followed. I have often thought, in the course of my relationships with a husband and wife, that between us I would gladly exchange the way one of them, likely both of them, treats me if they would treat each other with the grace they offer to me, a grace that makes me a better person, as well as lifting them. In the exchange they would find that they love each other. They would also discover that others will be better. Adult children might make their parental models their own. A sad remembrance in my life is to recall so many couples about to marry, who do not want a marriage like mom’s and dad’s. But, many did. It is likely that we do not quite gain the perception that God evaluates us from the inside outward to the most distant point. To fail close in does not get a pass by achieving farther out. We give up too soon in making the intimate context the best one. To fail with my parents meant I was not as mature as I needed to be. To fail with my wife was even more relevant to the placement of virtues and values. Then I should move out to others in the family, to neighbors, and through prayer to the ends of the earth – to all. In the meaning of Scripture, every Christian should be the servant of a missionary reaching others. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020