Choose wisely

Growing up I made pretty good decisions regarding my friend choices. None of my friends ever really got into major trouble, nor were they on the verge of doing anything illegal. However, it was not until I started hanging out at church that I realized that some of the kids my age were making better decisions than I was.

One night Kevin gave a sermon about choosing the right friendships. He mentioned that people come into our lives to be one of the following: friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime. After that message I did not really know what kind of friends I had. All I knew was that those were the guys that I hung out with on a day-to-day basis; I had no purpose behind those choices. Kevin’s challenge to me and the kids in our youth group was to be more intentional about the people that we associated with. The verse that I was left with stuck in my head that night was:

“He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.” ~Proverbs 13:20 (NKJV)

Over the next several months I realized even further that I spent time with a lot of different people, but nobody I really ever wanted to be like. They were all really good people, but none of them were really what I aspired to be. I wanted to be more like Kevin. And the best way to do that was to spend more time at church, because all of the group leaders were trying to do the same. If I wanted to be more like Kevin, I needed to be more like my group leaders.

Fast forward a couple of years, I ended up dedicating my life to Jesus Christ and started walking intentionally. Every person who came into my life automatically had the potential to be one of the three categories above. It was so interesting, and fun, to see the relationships in my life as something more than just happenstance. Little did I know that I was becoming more intentional.

So my question is: What kind of people are you choosing to hang out with, and are they the kind of people that you aspire to be like? My challenge is that you make the conscious decision to invest your time into people that can make an impact on your life, and vice versa. Time on earth is short, and the choices that we make, especially with relationships, are probably among the most important. Choose wisely.

Praying for you,

MO