Where did you learn that?

Because much of my life happens inside an "organized" church I am often presented with people's opinions about "organized" religion. My sarcastic response is if you think organized religion is bad you should see disorganized religion, but my response is probably too organized to be of much value. The other day my disorganized mind made one of those leaps that are only possible in the freedom of free association. It seems to me that much of what we learn is somewhat accidental. Nobody said class began, nobody handed out an outline, there was no textbook and no final exam. But by the sheer power of presence, the influence of conversation and observation, we end up "knowing" some things. So at the risk of sounding self serving, how much do we learn when we simply choose to show up regularly where righteous people regularly show up? How important is it to include influence in our personal development plan?
We are often deliberate and determined when it comes to pursuing things we want to know. We spend hours on the Internet, we actually pay to go to a class we actually go to, and we ask questions. But are we deliberately including the power of influence in our lives? And what about deliberately avoiding the power of influence when the case can be made that certain influences are negative?
The Apostle Paul felt the issue was important enough to remind the Corinthians "Do you not know, 'bad company corrupts good morals'." We are not sure who he was quoting or maybe he was quoting himself, but he seemed to be concerned about the power of influence.
This leads to another concern. What is the result of our influence? How are we affecting others? I like the idea of being a person who is being positively influenced and a person that is passing that influence on to others. I am thinking that maybe I should get organized about the issue of influence in and through my life.
But I have never had much appreciation for organized influence; I get all the influence I need just spending time alone in the woods . . .

I Don't Feel Very "Orderly"

The psalmist said that God orders our steps and that He delights in every detail of our lives (psa 37:23). But things do not feel all that orderly, directed, or even thought out. A bunch of things I said yes to months ago when they all sounded so far away are now "coming due." We are a week past due with the birth of our next grandchild. It is a birth with potential complications and thus greater concern. But now that we are past the due date the window in the schedule is past and obligations are staring me in the face. And just this afternoon it took me a few hours to even find this blog site after I got my computer back from being rebuilt. Rebuilt implies to me that it should come back complete and better, not finally working but with all my information and bookmarks missing. Another verse indicates that God can cause all things to work together for good. At this point I am tempted to say I would just like some things to just work together - that would be good.
But maybe the point of all this is to look up. Maybe staring at a set of overwhelming details while praying over my shoulder "You said this would all work out" is not the right approach. Maybe I should be looking up not down to get perspective. And maybe what the old song writer said was true - "Turn your eyes upon Jesus and the things of earth will grow strangely dim." So maybe none of the deadlines actually change but the energy and perspective needed to face them changes. God, just who He is, might be all the order that I need.