Whose Fingerprints Do They See?

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day on this glorious Friday afternoon! 😊

This weeks “Happy Friday” is going to be short and to the point. Last week I shared a quote from Pastor Pierre du Plessis. I had the privilege of speaking to a civic group in my community this week and I shared the quote again. The more I have shared and thought about that quote the more it has convicted my spirit and inspired me. This is the message and challenge of this weeks “Happy Friday.”

“When people look at you do they see the fingerprints of the Potter in your life?” – Pierre du Plessis

So, the question this week is this; when people look at you, whose fingerprints do they see? Who is influencing your life? Who is molding the way you think, speak, and act? Someone is…who?

Most of the messages I write are about our influence on others. The first thing we must work on though is ourselves…the people and things that influence us. I can give you both scripture and a quote to support this point:

Matthew 12:34

34 …the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Proverbs 4:23

23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

“What’s in the well, always comes up in the bucket.” – Ken Whitten

Whoever is molding and shaping us, whatever messages we are allowing to take root in the deepest recesses of our hearts, these are the people and things that show themselves in our words and actions. These are the fingerprints of the one who is shaping us.

None of us are perfect, we all have flaws and mistakes. We are all going through the process of transformation – learning, growing, and becoming all we were created to become – and will be until the day we take our last breath. This isn’t about being perfect, self-righteous, or better than anyone else. This is about who we are allowing to do the molding and shaping. So again, I will ask, “When people look at you, whose fingerprints do they see?” And please ask yourself, “Is this who I want to be and how I want to be represented?” The choices are ours; the consequences are natural to our choices.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great evening, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious families, and please stay well! 😊

Kev

Who Is Standing in Your Shadow?

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day – full of hope, opportunity, and promise! – begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama! I cherish this time; the quiet and peace of a new day as the world begins to wake up! 😊

Early this week I listened to a message from Life.Church that strongly resonated with me for reasons that I believe will be painfully obvious! 😊 It was a message titled, “Influence is Powerful – The Power of a Shadow,” and it was preached by Pastor Pierre du Plessis on June 30, 2019. You can watch the full message on YouTube by simply searching the title of the sermon…I would strongly encourage you to do so!

This morning I simply want to share some notes I took on the sermon and share some thoughts with you.

Pastor du Plessis started off by talking about the fact that we all cast a shadow – what he is talking about is our spheres of influence. He encourages us to think about the people in our shadows – spouses, children, co-workers, and friends, and what he calls the accidental – people at the gym or the coffee shop that you see over and over again. He notes that while we might think they are “accidental,” they, in fact, might be divine. He notes that people in our shadows are watching us closely and asking if that is what they want to become.

Pastor du Plessis noted 5 things about all our shadows:

1. Your shadow is influential whether you want it to be or not. In other words, the life you are living is influencing others whether you want it to or not. This should both inspire and scare us!
2. Your shadow is always consistent with your life. If that doesn’t cause us to pause, I don’t know what will! He talked about reflection vs. projection. Our shadow reflects the lives we live, who we really are. It does not project the “perfect life” we put on social media. He sums it up quite well; “Your shadow will never betray your heart.”
3. An impactful shadow comes from God’s ongoing work in our lives. Perhaps you are not a Bible believing person so I will say it another way; your shadow comes from the ongoing work of the people’s shadows that you stand within. Someone or something is impacting who you are – what or who is it? For those of us who are Christians and desire to live a Christ-centered life, let me sum this up with a rhetorical question Pastor du Plessis asked; “When people look at you do they see the fingerprints of the Potter in your life?”
4. Our greatest impact does not come from access to many but access to few. In other words, you don’t have to stand on a stage and speak to thousands to have an impact. In fact, it is the connection we have with a few in our lives on a daily basis that has the potential for the greatest impact. Pastor du Plessis brings up a great point; impact happens when we are up close. Impact happens when we are doing life with people.
5. Obeying His impulse and taking the risk of the 7 second moments in your life. You know those moments when you see a person and you think, “I should… [buy them a coffee, help, offer a kind word, etc.]” If you are like most of us, you have had these thoughts and almost immediately, we start talking to ourselves; “What if I look stupid?” or “What if they don’t want me to help?” Pastor du Plessis then offers this soul inspiring observation; “God will always meet you on the edge where faith and risk meet in the shadow.”

Pretty powerful stuff, isn’t it? I want to spend just a moment talking about points 4 and 5.

Our greatest impact does not come from access to many but access to few. Who are those people that you interact with daily? I am not talking about your family members, though hopefully they are our first and highest priority, but rather the people that you regularly see at the gym, the coffee shop, on your walk, etc. Please, don’t take them for granted but rather let’s genuinely cherish them. Let’s be extremely thoughtful about how we treat and interact with them for this, in fact, may be our greatest ministry. Do you know why? Because the shadow we cast, the influence we have, not only impacts the person standing in our shadow but also every single person that stand in their shadow. You see Friends, it is not just about you and me or the people that we are directly impacting – it is so much bigger than us! It would be wise to really think about, and be intentional, in every interaction.

Obeying His impulse and taking the risk of the 7 second moments in your life. I still remember, vividly, one of these impulses I did not follow. It was Valentine’s Day, and I was at the store to buy my Beautiful Bride some flowers. A very sweet elderly lady was in front of me. We started chatting and over and over again she said things like, “Those are beautiful flowers,” “I like flowers,” “It is so nice to get flowers.” And I got the impulse, “Give her the flowers.” Was she a widow? Did she have a family? What if she thinks I am weird? And on and on the questions raced through my mind until the 7 seconds, the opportunity, had passed. I did not take the risk and to this day I still think of that sweet woman. Perhaps she would have thought I was weird but so what? Perhaps the person you and I feel convicted to help or talk to doesn’t even act like they care…that is not the point. The point is to take the risk and give God the opportunity to meet us on the edge where faith and risk meet in the shadow. As Pastor du Plessis said,

“The saddest thing is for us to live invisible, forgettable lives. That at the end of our life, whether we were alive or not, does not matter.”

You and I will cast a shadow today, Friends. Our shadows will reflect who we really are and those living in it will be impacted – for good or bad. I pray we will let the Potter mold us today, that we will be attentive to His impulses, and that we will genuinely cherish every precious soul we are blessed to cross paths with today!

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well! 😊

Kev

Sharing Your Life

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day on this glorious Friday morning in my Sweet Home Alabama! How in the heck is it already the 1^st of September?! 😊

I once had a boss who encouraged us to, “Give experiences money can’t buy” and “Make Dads heroes.” He was encouraging us to do special things for people, to notice the opportunities we have all around us, and to make a difference in people’s lives through unique experiences.

Let me start off by sharing a failure of mine, one that for the next 5 years of my life shaped how I treated everyone. In 2007 I was blessed to be hired to serve in the Athletic Department at Arizona State University. Our offices were in the Carson Student Athlete Center located at the south end of Sun Devil Stadium. In my first week on the job, I was leaving the office a little after 5:00 p.m. and there was a family standing outside the stadium gates trying desperately to see inside. I thought for a moment, “I should give them a quick tour.” And then, sadly, I started giving myself all of these excuses why I couldn’t do it – had a long drive home, it is already rush hour, blah, blah, blah, blah. My spirit so strongly convicted as I drove home that I vowed I would never walk past anyone who wanted to see inside that beautiful stadium ever again. And so, over the course of the next 5 years, I gave literally hundreds of tours. Yes, it took a little bit of my time and no, it wasn’t always convenient however the lives that were touched, the memories that were created for families and friends…how do you put a price tag on any of it?

I have also been on the receiving end of these unique experiences. I have a friend who teaches fighter pilots how to fly the F-16. What did he do? He invited my family and I to get in F-16 flight simulators. How amazing is that? And by the way, that Top Gun stuff is WAY more difficult than it looks!!! 😊

Let me give you one other perspective. Earlier this week I heard a very accomplished photographer speak. He has dyslexia and a speech impediment. He showed some of the test that he took when they were diagnosing his dyslexia and then he said, “I see things different than everyone else.” And as he said this, he started showing some of his stunning photographs. It was amazing, through his incredible photography talent, he was able to show us what he sees and suddenly things were wildly alive, vibrant! It was one of the most amazing, stunning presentations I have ever seen!

So, what do you have? What are the things you could share with others that might bless their lives? Do you work someplace neat that others would love to see? Do you have some special talent that you could share with another? Why aren’t you?

We tend to get so caught up in what we don’t have or thinking that anything done for another must be expensive that we are walking by literally hundreds of opportunities to bless another life by simply sharing a small part of ours. I want to encourage you to really think about the things you can share, be mindful of those you could share them with, and then take the time to do it. I can promise you, while you will absolutely bless the lives of others, yours will be blessed in indescribable ways as well!

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can contact me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well! 😊

Kev