Are you qualified for influence? How can we extend our influence in our messy world? One relationship at a time, starting with spirit and truth.

You Can Help

If you love to read and love to think about impacting our culture, would you consider reading and critiquing my manuscript on the communication techniques Jesus used? Tentatively entitled, Qualified for Influence, I am looking for constructive feedback before I start sending the proposal to publishers. Today’s blog is an excerpt from the first chapter. See what ya think…

Qualified for Influence

How many hours had we been fighting, I wondered. Had it been days? Certainly, we were well past the  honeymoon stage. With two toddlers at home, I needed shoring up. Desperately, I was begging, demanding, pleading for emotional support from my young husband, but David was all out of energy, too. I stared up at the man I loved and frantically considered my options silently.

“I’m sick and tired of your feelings,” he announced. Emphatically, in a rare fit of honest vulnerability, I surprised him with my response. “I’m sick of my feelings, too!”

Conversational Adventure

Thus, began my long quest to understand the best way to communicate when conversation gets dang near impossible.

In America it seems we’ve forgotten how to have effective conversations. More than ever in this digital age, varying perspectives challenge and inspire us. Yet, many conversations make us feel like we just got slimed. It can be incredibly exasperating to try to talk to someone who fails to hear, especially if that person is someone we love. Or worse, someone who has a dozen creative ways to tell us our perspective is plain wrong. 

In fact, conversation has gotten so dang impossible we may feel adventurous for even trying! Of course, we all want to communicate effectively, but being people of influence is not for wimps. Sometimes, the most important place, home, is the very place we feel we have the least influence!

The Adventure of Influence

Opening up with gentle honesty is not easy. For some, it’s oh-so-easy to be brutally honest about another person’s faults. Brutal honesty can be an enticing self-indulgence, especially when we feel hurt. For others, hiding in self-defense, pretending to be perfect, and avoiding conflict are just a few habits that keep us isolated and stagnate. Yet, gentle honesty and truth, spiced with patience and compassion, build sweeter, more tender fellowship. 

“Any message you try to convey must contain a piece of you,” writes John Maxwell in his book, Everyone Communicates, Few Connect.

The Connectivity of Spirit and Truth

Jesus profoundly understood the connectivity of spirit and truth. As we’ll see in His conversation with the woman at the well, no one is better at communicating than Jesus. Therefore, we’ll analyze some ways the world’s greatest Communicator patiently connected in a conversational adventure with this beloved woman who came to the well alone.

In their conversation (recorded in John 4), Jesus demonstrates a bunch of trusted strategies for us to explore. He extends His influence in her life by focusing on her and only her. To name just a few, Jesus’s other strategies included offering irresistible benefits, engaging the imagination, assuming positively, assessing factually, speaking assertively, all seasoned with spirit (His Spirit) and truth. 

Are You Ready for Influence?

It’s common to wonder if we have what it takes to be a person of influence; you may be wondering right this minute if you have what it takes to be influential. I have some great news—you are probably already qualified.

God intends for you to be a person of influence! In order to prove this to you, I want to take you on an adventure of understanding what it means to step into the influence already available to you!

All you need is one characteristic. Are you ready? Yep, readiness is the one quality you need to be influential! And since you’re reading this, I’m guessing you are totally ready for conversational adventure!

🙂

Cathy

May I pray for you?

Dear Father in heaven, You gave us truth in Your Son and in the scriptures. We seek it, as we seek to dwell in Your Spirit. That sounds complicated, but You make it so easy for us, if we but trust You. The hard part is trusting. Help our hearts be ready for Your leadership today, O Lord. Give us the gift of influencing our world for pure good, to Your glory. We pray in Jesus’s name. Amen.

We love to hear from you!

Has life taught you some lessons about influence, good and bad, along the way? What is the best thing you’ve experienced when it comes to influence? Why would you step into more influence if readiness were the most important qualification?

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More Stories and Wisdom to Bless Our Hearts

If you get excited about creating a better world, one community at a time, you may also love what these guests had to say on Fireside Talk Radio: Benjamin A. Simpson, Suzy Shepherd, James Van Dyke, Colleen Long and Dana Goodrum. 

Cathy Krafve, Columnist, Speaker, Blogger, Podcaster, and Christian Writer, invites your stories, ideas, and questions at CathyKrafve.com. Truth with a Texas Twang.