Who Has Influenced You?

Much of who we are today is the result of what we have seen, heard, and been exposed to through our lives.

Consciously or unconsciously, we filter these experiences, deeming some as admirable and endeavoring to incorporate them into our own lives. Others we reject, resolving not to have such attitudes or actions as a part of who we become.

If you stop and think about it, much of who you are today is an accumulation of countless influences you have been exposed to throughout the course of your life. Of course, you have also been highly impacted by the decisions you made about things you have seen, learned, and experienced. You have likely chosen to embrace and incorporate into your life certain positive influences from your past, and you have also probably rejected other influences and disallowed them a place in your life.

Jonathan Edwards, the famed pastor and theologian during America’s Great Awakening, made it a point that if he saw or heard of anything praiseworthy in another person, he would seek to embrace and embody that trait. Likewise, if he was aware of a negative trait in another person, he would determine not to replicate it. Many of us have probably done the exact same thing, perhaps on numerous occasions, although we may not have been as intentional as Edwards was.

When some people think of mentoring, they picture a formal, structured setting. For example, they envision having a weekly meeting with a spiritual leader to study Scripture and discuss life with them. No doubt this type of thing might happen, and it can be a very valid form of promoting spiritual formation in a person’s life. However, for every formal situation like this, we probably experience thousands of informal learning opportunities throughout life.

 I lived in a very small town (around two thousand people) through my first year of elementary school. One of my vivid memories is being in the front yard with my dad when a car drove by and he waved at the driver.

 I remember asking my dad, “Did you know that person?”

 He responded, “No, I was just being friendly.”

That seems like such a small and insignificant event, but for some reason it made a big impression on me. My dad probably thought absolutely nothing of that moment, but it has stuck with me all these years. Somehow, his small gesture communicated to me that it is a good thing to be friendly and outgoing, and I have endeavored to emulate that throughout my life.

 After we moved to a larger city, I was part of a swim team when I was in sixth grade. When my mom picked me up at the YMCA, she noticed a young kid in the lobby who seemed a little lost. She asked him if he was alright and if he had a way to get home. After consulting with the staff, she offered to give the boy a ride home. He was greatly relieved that someone was willing to help him, and I remember that car ride to this day. Again, it was a life lesson for me—that it is good to be aware of others and to help people in need.

Neither of these situations happened in a classroom setting; they just happened in the course of everyday life. My parents probably were not aware that they were teaching me at those moments, but that’s how a large percentage of mentoring takes place—by example. One of my heroes, John Wooden, said, “Mentoring can be any action that inspires another; every time we watch someone and make a mental note about that individual’s character or conduct, we’re being mentored.”

 Wooden wrote of different mentors whose examples and influence had dramatically impacted his life. Among those he discussed were his father and his wife, three coaches for whom he had played, and two individuals he had never met: Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa. Though Wooden was ninety-eight years old when he wrote that, he spoke of how he was still learning from other people. Having mentored countless individuals throughout his own life, Wooden was passionately committed to both teaching and being taught. He writes:

The important thing is that you open yourself up to be a willing student. You need to allow yourself the luxury of learning. Sometimes that might even involve swallowing a little pride, but there is nothing more valuable than learning from someone who has been there. Advice, after all, is just experience without the pain of having to learn those lessons yourself.

Howard Hendricks, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary for sixty years, is another individual who had great insights into the power of mentoring. He writes,

Mentoring is what happens when one man affects another man deeply enough to where he later declares, “I never would have become who I am were it not for that man’s influence.”

It is good to sometimes take inventory of who has helped us grow and become better in life. Whether their influence was intentional or incidental, we should always be grateful. Even if the example was a bad one, we can take it as a warning, as a behavior to avoid.

 Many years ago, I was speaking at a conference for pastors and church leaders in Brazil. During a question-and-answer session, I was asked about the greatest lesson I had learned from Kenneth E. Hagin, for whom I had worked for more than eighteen years. Brother Hagin was a prolific author and Bible teacher, and at first, I thought I would not be able to provide a concise answer; there were just too many lessons to choose from.

 All of a sudden, a key lesson popped into my mind, and I told the audience, “The most important lesson I learned from Brother Hagin is that he always gave his wife the best egg.” Perhaps the audience was expecting a profoundly spiritual or theological type of answer, but my response was about an egg. I explained to them that throughout the course of their marriage, Brother Hagin would always go to the kitchen and prepare two eggs while his wife, Oretha, was getting ready in the morning. He would always give her whichever egg looked best, and he ate the other one. This may not sound overly spiritual, but it made a big impression on me and instilled within me the principle that love prefers the other person.

 I also had the privilege of working with Kenneth W. and Lynette Hagin for the same number of years. Serving as an associate pastor, I witnessed their “can do” attitude regularly. Their tenacious approach was based on this premise: We will do whatever it takes to get the job done. They both taught and lived that principle. One day as Pastor Hagin and I were walking into one of the buildings on campus, he saw a small piece of clear cellophane (probably from a candy wrapper) several feet away from where we were walking. Even though it was well out of the way, he walked over, picked it up, and threw it in the trash can once we got into the building.

 That may seem insignificant to some, and I’m sure Pastor Hagin did not think one thing about it, but for whatever reason it made a big impression on me. That simple act modeled a servant’s heart and expressed the idea: If you see something that needs to be done, do it. It was also an important reminder that you are never too important to do seemingly small things. These types of moments can be mentoring moments, even if they are unintentional. It should remind us that people may be watching more closely than we think, and it also reminds us to have our eyes open to learn at all times.

An Even Bigger Picture

 I am guessing that we can all think back through our lives and recall both positive and negative behaviors we saw exhibited by others. Maybe we even had a conscious checklist of positive traits we admired and hoped to emulate or negative attributes we never wanted to incorporate into our own lives. Perhaps we saw these different elements in parents, teachers, coaches, or neighbors, but all of us have been exposed to countless examples throughout life, both positive and negative.

One of the common characteristics of these exposures is that they happened right in front of us. We really didn’t have any control over who our parents and other relatives were, where we lived, or where we went to school; all of that was outside of our control. But another type of influence, outside of our native sphere, is found in the exemplary people we seek out and study. Many of these may not even be alive on earth any longer, but their lives and examples are still available to us as powerful tools.

When I was a teenager, I read David Wilkerson’s book, The Cross and the Switchblade. His courage and commitment to Christ inspired me. Around the same time, I read Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand, a Romanian pastor who spent fourteen years in a communist prison. Again, I was profoundly impacted and was in awe of his perseverance and faith in the midst of severe persecution. Though I was young and inclined to look up to sports heroes, deep inside I saw a virtue in these spiritual leaders that far exceeded athletic or other secular accomplishments. Though it would be a few years after reading these books that I would sense God’s call to ministry and consecrate myself accordingly, these accounts were living seeds that were planted in my heart.

And There’s Much More

Just as the lives of Wilkerson and Wurmbrand spoke to me, God has many examples and witnesses who can influence and speak powerfully to us. Many of these influencers are embedded within Scripture.

“…Although Abel is long dead, he still speaks to us by his example of faith” (Hebrews 11:4 NLT). No one would take that to mean that Abel is physically and literally speaking to us, but that we can still learn from and be inspired by the example of his faith. We are not alone in our spiritual journeys but, are part of a great and glorious company. Scripture reminds us that “we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith” (Hebrews 12:1 NLT). In this same verse, the Message refers to “those pioneers who blazed the way” and refers to “these veterans cheering us on.”

This same principle is powerfully illustrated in a moving scene from Remember the Titans. Coach Herman Boone, played by Denzel Washington, is trying to coach a newly integrated high school football team in the early 1970s, and racial tensions are making his job difficult. In a pre-season training camp, Boone leads his team on a tiring, late-night run, and without the team knowing, they end up right next to Gettysburg. As the players try to catch their breath from the exhausting run, Coach Boone dramatically states:

This is where they fought the battle of Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fighting the same fight that we are still fighting among ourselves today. This green field right here, painted red, bubblin’ with the blood of young boys. Smoke and hot lead pouring right through their bodies. Listen to their souls, men. “I killed my brother with malice in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family.” You listen, and you take a lesson from the dead. If we don’t come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed, just like they were. I don’t care if you like each other or not, but you will respect each other. And maybe... I don’t know, just maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men.

So, the idea of drawing inspiration, lessons, and insight from the writings and lives of those who have gone before us is commonly understood and expressed, both biblically and secularly.

When it comes to our lives, relative to the grand scheme of God’s plan, this concept becomes especially powerful when we begin to see ourselves as actual participants in the overall process and not mere spectators. In other words, we no longer simply admire these heroes from a distance, but realize that we are called to be a part of the same journey and to carry the same torch. Billy Graham acknowledged his place in God’s overall plan relative to those who preceded him:

I realize that my ministry would someday come to an end. I am only one in a glorious chain of men and women God has raised up through the centuries to build Christ’s church and take the Gospel everywhere.

You and I are links in the same chain, and we should never lose sight of the privilege of being vitally connected to those who came before us, knowing that “Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 2:11 NLT). We carry a torch that many before us have carried, and we should carry it respectfully and honorably.

 When the author of Hebrews mentions the great crowd of witnesses, it is a reference to the legendary Old Testament figures listed in the previous chapter (Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, David, etc.). While we should never diminish the value and significance of those biblical heroes, more than two thousand years have come and gone, and many other heroes of faith have finished their races and taken their place in the grandstands as well. Fortunately for us, many of these not only left remarkable examples, but also powerful, compelling, and inspirational words.