No one really wants to follow you person. They really don't. They want to know that, by following you, they are really following a higher principle, a transcendent truth. In spiritual followership, people want to know whether they are being led and influenced by God.
There is only one line of sight that will bring order to all our life and work: a vision of Christ seated at the right hand of God the Father, ruling with all justice and mercy. Our influence only means something if it is plotted along that trajectory, and our work ultimately leads people to that same goal.
Leadership that is entirely self-directed will always be pathological. The only thing worse than worshipping an idol is to act like an idol.
God uses millions of no-name influencers every day in the simplest selfless acts of service. They are the teachers whose names will never be in the newspaper, pastors who will never author a book, managers who will never be profiled in a magazine, artists whose work is buried in layers of collaboration, writers whose sphere of influence is a few dozen people who read their blogs. But they are the army that makes things happen. To them devotion is its own reward. For them influence is a continual act of giving, nothing more complicated than that.
Taking delight in random encounters that come our way is a wonderful reminder that God is in control.
Grief is not a problem to be fixed but a process to be lived out.
The only enduring influence we have to offer others is the influence God has in our own lives.
Living the Bible is a blessing, not a burden. It is a gift, not a loss. To 'live the Bible' is to draw close to our Creator, not to scale a ladder to God.