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What’s influencing me?

In a world where many influences seek to hold sway in our lives, turning to God for inspiration and guidance can help us stay on a productive path.

  • By Madeline Cassidy

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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We hear a lot these days about “influencers” – those who publicly promote brands, establishments, etc., on social media. Many are trendsetters and have thousands of followers who watch them avidly.

This got me thinking about what is influencing me. I’ve been deeply pondering something that Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, wrote in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “In a world of sin and sensuality hastening to a greater development of power,” she wrote, “it is wise earnestly to consider whether it is the human mind or the divine Mind which is influencing one” (pp. 82-83).

This has led me to consider the life of Christ Jesus. He honored no other intelligence but the one divine Mind, a scripturally based name for God. Jesus’ teachings so beautifully convey that the one Mind that guided – influenced – him also influences and guides each one of us.

This means that every moment we can consider whether we’re getting pulled into limiting, materialistic thinking or allowing our thought to tend toward God, who created us as His spiritual offspring. We have an innate receptivity to the goodness and wisdom that the divine Mind expresses in us.

Before beginning his unparalleled and glorious ministry, Jesus himself had to face down the temptation to be influenced by unhelpful thoughts that would have kept him from his mission to help and heal humanity. He defended his right to follow God’s leadings. And talk about having followers – he had a countless number, from his day up until now.

We each have the opportunity to determine what is influencing us. And whether we’re browsing social media, making decisions, or making our way through school or work, it’s easier to be led in the right direction when we know that we are the spiritual creation of God, whose goodness and guidance are here to influence us all.

Adapted from the June 27, 2022, Christian Science Daily Lift podcast.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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