Expanding Circles of Influence
And developing our internal soil.
When you were born your circle of influence was small in two ways. You didn’t influence others very much except as a baby.
What I mean by this is you didn’t share deep thoughts or insights. You represented the powerlessness and sweetness of a baby to many, and to a few you represented a number of conflicting emotions.
On the one hand you represented hope. Your parents might have seen in you the hope of someone who one day would be important. That was their dream. You, the baby, also represented work and difficulties because you demanded complete devotion. This is because you could do nothing for yourself. You also may have represented pride-of-family. You may have represented to your parents proof of the significance and value of their union. It was of course a mix between hope and reality; the future and the present.
So your birth had an impact (a circle of influence), on a few, even an important significance to a few. That was about it.
As you grew out of babyhood, your connections with others expanded and somewhere early on you likely (hopefully) began to interact with other children. Your circles of impact blended and enlarged.
As you continued into late childhood, your peer group’s importance to you expanded even further as did the influence of other adults on your life. Hopefully you had a similar impact on them.
Each one of these people represented other histories of places and people who influenced them (different circles). No one started at the same time and place, even twins, and from there no one took the same exact path as anyone else. You might say, you were indirectly influenced by the people who came into your influencers’ lives. They worked to expand your worldview.
This process continues to the present moment.
Now this isn’t all. It couldn’t possibly be. Books influence. So does media and it is influencing more with each generation, which is not a healthy trend in my opinion because the influencing is lopsided in the direction of the consumer.
Now let’s look at a famous parable and see if it helps us better understand how spheres of influence affect our receptivity to new and important ideas.
In Luke 8:4-15, Jesus describes a sower casting seeds that fell on different soils. He then told us what this picture represented.
The sower was God and the seed represented his word or the good news of his word. The soils represented our receptivity to his good news.
There were four different seed-landing places. There were the seeds that landed on the road or hard path. Here the seed never entered soil at all. Spiritually, this represents a stone heart and a closed mind. The seed that lands here becomes bird food.
The seeds that land on rocky soil may sprout but have no ability to take root. Cares of the world distract many so they lose the depth and beauty of the good news. This is the soil with weeds that distract. And then, of course, there is the good soil that allows for amazing growth to occur if we are patient and allow it enough time for completion. This is the abundant harvest.
Now let’s put spheres of influence and soils together.
Our lives begin with a small sphere of influence. Then others come into our lives bringing their influence. Some never connect that well. Some come and influence us for good and not so good results. And a few make deep, life changing impact.
In Conclusion
This is the story of the development of our internal soil and, at least to me, helps explain why some get God’s message for their lives and others may never be able to connect the dots. People most receptive to God are those who have been influenced and opened up to receiving good news about the deepest meaning of life because of their connections and interactions with others not like themselves.