Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Romance of Influence

Changing our minds is easy. The brain is apt to adapt to its cognitive environment based on the sensory data that it transmutes into perceived information—personal meaning. This is how we deal with the negative in life; change our environments to change our minds.

This is a significant thing to know. If we can change our minds at any time, which depends almost entirely on the stimuli we’re absorbing, we have the power to create the environment we need to live safe, effective and happy lives.

A good example of this is how watching a motion picture will shift our mood, distracting our perception. Our minds are changed by simply watching. Then when the movie’s finished we revert back to what we were previously thinking about.

Adjusting What Influences Us

Instead of playing victim, by watching hours of television every day, or finding ourselves in the company of the arrogantly rude and staying there, we shift our environment to suit us and God’s purposes.

We have total freedom in this—so long as adjustments fit God’s purposes. (Sometimes the Spirit places us in environments we don’t enjoy; there is a purpose beyond simply endurance.)

Adjusting what we allow to influence us is a simple matter of awareness and then a commitment to action; to stay or change.

This romance of influence simply contends that we soak up ‘where’ we’re at, learning all the time and adapting to those environments—those environments also having a say over us and what directions we’re taking.

Making the Most of Influence’s Romancing Qualities

Being that we’re highly able to be influenced is not just a warning to stay away from the bad crowd who can take us off the right path, it’s also about understanding there are millions of worthy and honourable seedbeds in our world that’ll take us to sumptuous places in the heart.

When the mature-aged person decides they’re going to university, they’re placing themselves in a situation where the influence-factor will be a positive one—they’ll be ‘romanced’ to growth and personal improvement. The studies may not be easy, but the process of influence, and the changes exacted, will occur seamlessly.

God is With Us

Think of influence this way. We’re given a choice; go an easy way that seems attractive for its ease or go a harder way (at least initially) which reveals a more morally attractive result.

Either choice is easy made, as are the ‘places’ of influence that will take us to each result. The difference is the bending of the heart—does it tend toward virtue or not?

We can choose for reward or punishment; these come directly through our choices of where, how and what influences us.

God is with us in this, for at least there’s a choice. And not only that, the Lord is giving us compelling evidence to go the virtuous way, because we see it working in our world—generally—all the time.

Be influenced for God and Divine purposes, for that influence will romance our hearts and minds in beautiful and serene directions.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Graphic Credit: NASA – the Sun in 3D.

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