Plagiarism

Plagiarism: the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. 

Do you know I do this all the time?  I try to mention people like in recent posts I have mentioned listening to Andy Stanley and I repeated at least one story he told, but I did mention his name in my post. I feel like much of my thought is formed over the last half century plus that I have been alive. I grew up on a church bench and I remember some names and I used to remember the name of the pastor in Bismark N.D. when I was growing up. But I don't remember the name anymore.  I was influenced by Sunday School teachers over many years as well as pastors but I don't remember their names anymore. OFten as I listen to a sermon or a good teacher or if I am reading a book that touches me with a story or an idea, I do try to internalize it and make it mine. I am a product of so many people over the years. And I pass on what I have learned even in these posts.  Sometimes I get confused about who said what.  I repeated a thought last night about Christ losing everything to serve us. The pastor I was talking with stopped, it struck him, I just picked up on a nugget in something you just said and it makes sense to me. I started that thought in a post a few days ago when I talked about Christ losing his life for our sakes. About our culture that is so focused on winning. We talk about a win/win situation all the time. Our President talked for the last four years about winning.  We are terribly focused on winning at any cost. But that is not Christ's way. Christ was counter-culture even in his day. That thought is part of the nugget the pastor picked up on, I'll bet there will be a future sermon in his church about how Christ modeled losing to serve. Christ did not come to win but to serve.  When I wrote my first post about perhaps maybe we need to learn how to lose again, I was not real confident in what I was saying. Then I mentioned in a post the next day I listen to Andy Stanley's video titled "we are not in it to win it". It gave me confidence that I was on the right track.  Then in talking about this, my Pastor friend also picked up on the thought. A lot of stuff I write is not original to me. That post about  "After Effects" and  "We can't always win" were probably the most original with me ever. I am afraid of spreading heresy, I like to stick with thoughts from people I trust. It gave me confidence that I really didn't have when first writing those posts.  But I probably do plagiarise a lot because if something touches me I try to make it mine. So do many preachers and teachers. We are products of many preachers and teachers and as we make it our own and internalize it, we make it ours. Do you know they now have a plagiarism checker by Grammarly?   I have not loaded it. I do want to continue to post once a day. I missed a lot of days in December being sick and all. I was also fighting a spiritual battle in my soul. God bless, LVZ.