Last week I attended Write to Publish, a Christian writer’s conferences hosted at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. It’d been five years since I last attended a writing conference, and it was so encouraging to meet and network with so many awesome Christian writers. While at the conference, I got to chatting with a fellow attendee about the way we as Christians often underestimate the amount of influence an author can have in our life. We talked about evaluating the amount of time we spend reading an author’s books and how there is an equivalent influence that accompanies the time we spend listening to (or basically being instructed) by that author.
In the same way spending extensive amounts of time with a friend, family member, teacher, mentor, coach, boss, co-worker, etc. can lead to you being influenced for good or bad by their behaviors, choices, words, etc. so too can you be influenced by the behaviors, choices, words, etc. of the world and characters an author presents to you through their fiction. (Now maybe your not much of a reader of fiction, but as I pointed out above this can be true of speakers you’re listening to, church leaders you admire, also YouTubers you’re watching, social media influencers you’re following, reporters you give your ear to, social activists you support, etc. Basically anyone who you are allowing to have access to your life, is someone who has influence in your life, whether you know it or not.
Influence can happen without us even recognizing that it is taking place. I encountered this myself in a very startling way while reading a series of mainstream fiction books for a research project I was doing. I knew I was not in agreement with the author, and I thought I had a tightly closed door to the author’s influence. Yet, I discovered to my shock that something I would never have considered endearing suddenly became so simply because I had been reading this author’s books. Now, this particular shifted in my thinking was not harmful to my soul, but the realization of it made me question what else inside me had shifted because I had spent time reading this author’s writing.
There are two questions we should be asking ourselves on a continual basis:
- How much access to my life am I giving this individual or group?
- What kind of influence are they having on me? Is their influence good or bad? Aligned with Scripture or contrary to Scripture?
It is very important for us to take a critical look at which people we’re allowing to have access to our lives and how they are influencing us. We can then wisely take steps to limit the access of those whose influence is contrary to Scripture and increase the access of those who are aligned toward Scripture in their words and behaviors.
For as proverbs so aptly points out:
“The righteous should choose his friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray.” ~Pro 12:26~
“As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. “~Pro 27:17~
Challenge: Take stock of the influencers in your life, evaluate them according to whether or not they are those who sharpen you in your Christianity or those who are leading you astray, then grant your time to those people in accordance with the wisdom given in God’s Word.
When the rocks speak 