Influence

My son, Robbie, and I watched the movie Rudy last night. I have seen it a couple of times while it was his first. As I have each time I've watched it, I got extremely choked up near the end of the film as this over-performing, marginal athlete finally achieves his goal. I'm not even close to being a Notre Dame fan but this is a great movie.

The obvious theme to the movie is about perseverance, grit, determination, attitude and overcoming incredible odds. This is all very inspiring stuff, yet during the show, I was saddened by two scenes.

In the first, Rudy is at the bus stop, ready to leave for South Bend to chase his dream after his best friend's funeral. His father stops by to tell him about his grandfather who had a dream to be a dairy farmer during the Great Depression. He explained all of the heartache his grandfather and others suffered. He then said something like, "Chasing your dream does nothing but cause problems for you and everyone around you."

The other scene occurs when Rudy is talking with one of his teammates, also a walk-on player. This player states that he hates playing football here and that the only reason he does is because his dad played here. He, in fact, had scholarship offers from two Big Ten schools but came here because of dad's pressure.

How sad. Both of these fathers missed opportunities to speak love and encouragement into their son's lives, yet they chose to squelch their dreams. The unfortunate thing about this is it goes on every day all around us. Not only in families but everywhere.

We all have tremendous influence over others, whether it be in our office, in the community or at home with our families. We have a choice to make, will that influence be positive or negative? Let's do our best to make sure that we are influencing others in a positive and uplifting way.

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:11