H ave you ever stopped to ask your self, “Does my influence count for God?” In Rom. 14:7 we read, “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.” Some time ago in the Washing ton, D.C. Bureau of Standards a tiny tube, containing less than 1/2000th of an ounce of radium, was acci dentally dropped and broken on a hardwood floor. With a camel’s hair brush, the precious radium was swept up. The floor was washed to get the rest of it. Enough remained, however, to render three more wash ings necessary. Each time $400 worth of radium was obtained. Fi nally, a carpenter scraped the floor. Three years later, the scrapings were burned and the ashes were found to be strong in radium. Even so, it is similarly impossible to get rid of influence. Influence is invisible and intangible. Like faith, influence cannot be weighed on scales or wrapped up in some kind of package. Like friend ship, influence cannot be measured with a yardstick. Like honesty, in fluence cannot be handled and car ried in pockets. Influence cannot be scrutinized with a microscope, ob served with a telescope or reflected in a mirror. Yet, like radium, how unbelievably potent it is. You can no more prevent what you are, what you say and what you do from affecting other people than you can prevent your body from cast ing a shadow in sunlight. Influence, almost impossible of definition, is not calculated by mathematics nor deducible by logic. As personality may be regarded as the sum total of all the traits and qualities of the physical, psychological and spiritual life characterizing the individual, so
influence, unseen in its power, is the total effect of one’s life on oth ers. The humblest person exerts In fluence for good or evil upon others. You may not be conscious of it, oth ers may not be aware of it, but in fluence constantly emanates from you like a magnet, alive and active. It is impossible for one’s life to be neu tral. As the least movement in nature is important, as the entire ocean is affected by a pebble, so your life is never too small, never too weak, never too obscure to lack influence. No act of any man is an isolated act. Some folks exert influence as rivers in magnitude; some as lamps, softly glowing; some as volcanoes, vomiting lava; some as matches, quickly spent; some as forest fires, hard to put out. In considering influence, we think of iniquity which is the God-dis pleasing action cast on the side of Satan against God. A man can so live as to be “a dog in the manger”, “a fly in the ointment”, “a grit on the axle”, a disease in the blood. Your sin, is not an isolated fact, the responsibility of which begins and ends with you. It is part of a vast network and entanglement. There is such a thing as contagion of cowardliness. Deut. 20:8 contains these words, “What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart.” That is the influence of fear on other hearts. Similarly there is courage. In Acts, we read of the great storm which caused the passengers aboard the ship on which Paul sailed to quake and quail. The Apostle, trust ing God, took bread and gave thanks 15
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