Influence

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I grew up surrounded by the unique and very distinct Boston accent. It sounds like this, and please, don’t try this at home; I am a professional: “Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd.” (Bonus Bostonian dialect lesson: The term “wicked” means “very, very,” as in “That scientist from Hahvahd is wicked smaht.”) R’s on the end of my words and syllables didn't exist, since that was the way everyone around me spoke.

So when my accent and I moved to North Carolina State University, I sounded just a wee bit different from the locals. “Where y’all from?” was the initial response. (Bonus southern dialect lesson: “y’all” is one person; “all y’all” is a group of people.) Once someone knew I was from the Boston area, the very next thing out of someone's mouth would be: "Hah! So do y'all paaaaahhk your caaaahh in Haaaahhvaaaahhd yaaaahhd?" 

After being totally immersed in Southern culture for almost a year, my R’s reappeared occasionally. I even developed a slight drawl. Like when I got a flat – I had to change the “tar” instead of the “tie-ah.”  

When I came back to Boston, friends would say “Sean, wheah you been? You sound wicked Southern.” Back at school, friends would drawl, “I reckon you been back in Boston. Y’all sound funny.” Back and forth I went between accents and dialects without consciously realizing I was adapting and changing based on what I heard from those people around me. Although I liked sounding, and therefore being, different from people, I was insecure enough that I didn't want to be that different.

The more we are around someone or a particular group, the more likely we are to be influenced by them, consciously or not. We start to act like them, pick up certain habits, and repeat what they say. Kids mimic their parents. Employees act like the boss to advance. We try to fit into the crowd.

… which becomes a problem when the influence of those people causes us to drift away from God. As Paul warns, “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33). As my Southern friends might say, “Ornery people’ll make yuh ornery, and that’ll git y’all in a whole mess of trouble.”

What kind of sway are people having on you, and do you realize it? Because when it comes to the influence other people have on the way you live, the way you act, and the way you talk, all y’all bettah be wicked caheful.

Thorns

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When a wild rose grew up and bloomed unexpectedly in the hedge at the edge of our yard, we decided to relocate the rose to a more prominent location near the front of our house. Then, two stems turned into a bush, and its roots began to spread. New stems began sprouting out away from the bush over a larger and larger area, consuming more real estate than we ever intended. The rose bush had to be removed, which meant dealing with thorns.

Although I had thick gloves on to protect my hands, the thorns cut into my forearms and stabbed me in the torso as I wrestled to remove the bush. It’s as if the thorns knew specifically where I had minimal protection, and attacked me in those weak spots.

Some people are referred to as “thorny” for a reason. These are the people we wish we didn’t have to deal with, but just cannot avoid, like classmates, co-workers, clients, neighbors, and maybe even family members. Their words slash us. Their actions tear at us. Sometimes their mere presence intimidates us. And no matter how we try to protect ourselves, our vulnerable spots end up hurt.

We spend an exorbitant amount of time focused on the thorns. We end up thinking about how to avoid them, or confront them, or survive being near them. Thorny people chew up a lot of mental real estate, consuming our thoughts and hindering other parts of our lives because we cannot stop replaying events in our head, exclaiming “I can’t believe what he did!” And the more we retell the story to others – “Can you BELIEVE what he said?!?” - the more established the thorn’s roots become in our minds.

Who is the thorny person in your life? 

Despite the prickly nature of some people, we are supposed to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27-28). Thorny people should move us closer to Christ because they keep us humble, and provide opportunities to demonstrate His character when it is least expected. 

Loving, doing good, blessing, and praying for those people who hurt us enables us to release our grip on the situation, and place it in Jesus’s hands instead. Thorns only hurt when we wrestle with the rose bush. All that loving and blessing and praying enables us to get a glimpse of how Jesus views that person, and to realize that despite our focus on the parts of the bush that hurt us, every thorn does have a rose.

Sockeye Fishing Lessons

Her smile stretched as large as the sockeye salmon she caught – big, broad, and beautiful. As I scooped my daughter’s fish out of the water for her to see, I thought the tightening net would snap because of the fish’s weight. After years of fishing for trout in the rivers and lakes around Montana, fishing for salmon in Alaska was, literally and figuratively, an entirely different animal.

Our friend Aaron gave us all the same instructions before we started plying the waters. Turns out you don’t trick salmon into biting a hook or a fly. You don’t delicately present your fly in a natural way, hoping not to spook the fish. You don’t select the right pattern or color to dupe them.

Instead, you chuck this mass of metal upstream, where it splashes in like a cannonball. The weights and hook bounce and drag on the bottom, until the river pushes it just pass you. Then you heave the hook horizontally out of the water with a sidearm motion . . . and hope the hook happens to snag an unsuspecting fish in the mouth.

As rough and tumble as it sounds, there is a technique to it, which Aaron explained and demonstrated to all of us many times over the course of two days. When my wife and I were lucky enough to snag a fish, however, his instruction evaporated from our minds, and we reverted back to what we knew – trying to land a trout. The result: lots of Aaron’s tackle lost, and no fish.

But my daughter’s brain, and the brain of most kids, is like a chalkboard. Her little mental eraser wiped away the instructions about catching trout once Aaron started explaining how to catch salmon, and new instructions appeared. She approached salmon fishing like the child she is - innocent and unencumbered by any preconceived notions or I-know-what-I’m-doing pride, unlike us adults.

Jesus said we need to receive the kingdom of heaven like a little child (Luke 18:17). To do so, we adults need to wipe away all the clutter of what we think heaven should be like, and what we think we should be doing to serve Him. We just need to accept His personal instruction for us, act on it, and be patient. Otherwise, we’ll end up thwarted, frustrated and angry, which is not a good combination for getting into heaven, and apparently, not good for catching sockeyes either.

My Aching Big Toe

It all started when the cast iron griddle fell off the shelf and onto my foot, striking just above my left big toe. No bones broke or fractured, but then again, nothing was ever quite right after that either. Even though it happened over a year ago, my toe still aches from time to time when I land on it just the wrong way.

And when my toe is in pain, I’ll shift my gait ever so slightly to try and lessen that pain. That puts odd stress on my left ankle. Which means my left hip starts to bother me. Then I’ll put more pressure on my right leg as I limp to compensate, which causes my right knee to act up. Which means my back gets thrown out of alignment because I end up moving in this weird, herky-jerky motion as I hobble around. Who knew my big toe could make me a physical wreck?

A foot problem causes a chain reaction that wreaks havoc with many, many other parts of your body, primarily because the toes and the foot are intended to provide stability to the rest of you. They are the foundation on which you stand, and if they have a problem, you won’t stand correctly for long.

What are you standing on, thinking it will hold you up? The stock market, job, social status, bank account, friends or family name? They might not be as stable over the long term as you think. People shift. Seasons change. Things happen. So what or who do you rely on for stability when little things go wrong, and start adding up to bigger and bigger problems, wreaking havoc with your life?

Jesus said a person who comes to Him, hears His words and puts them into practice “is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it because it was well built” (Luke 6:47-48).

In other words, no matter what trouble comes your way, with Jesus as your rock-solid foundation to stand on, you won’t have to go limping through life.

Traces of God

Physicists wanted answers to a big question, so they constructed the largest machine in the world to get them. The Large Hadron Collider cost about $10 billion to build, consists of a 17-mile long underground tunnel, and shoots 40 million protons per second toward each other through the tunnel at 99.9999991% of the speed of light. The hope is to finally detect the Higgs boson particle, nicknamed the “God particle” because it is predicted to be the fundamental building block of everything in the universe.

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However, the Higgs boson cannot be seen because it only exists for a yoctosecond, or 0.000000000000000000000001 of a second. Therefore, scientists cannot detect the particles directly, but instead observe “tracks” after the protons collide and break into smaller pieces. Like contrails from a high-altitude jet, the traces indicate the particles have been there.

Although physicists dislike the “God particle” nickname, it seems appropriate considering how He reveals Himself. Smack in the middle of pain, grief, suffering and doubt crashing through our lives, we cry out “God, where are you?” but we don’t get a clear answer. We want answers and relief in a yoctosecond, but evidence of God’s presence can take years to see. It took me over 20 years to finally understand my parents’ divorce was probably the best thing to happen to my spiritual growth, despite the confusion and sadness I experienced when I was a boy. I wanted answers, but got none at the time.

Similarly, despite direct involvement in some of God’s mightiest miracles, Moses still needed reassurance that God would continue to lead the Israelites through the desert after leaving Egypt. Even after holding his hands up to part the Red Sea, Moses still had doubts about God. He pleaded for answers from God, and wanted to see Him directly face to face.

“Then the Lord said, ‘There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.’”(Exodus 33:21-23).

What big questions do you want answers to? God may not be apparent when we want Him or expect Him to be, but with faith and perseverance, the traces of His presence become evident later.