A Good Friend

“For your steadfast love is before my eyes,   and I walk in your faithfulness. I do not sit with men of falsehood,  nor do I consort with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers,  and I will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O Lord, proclaiming thanksgiving aloud, and telling all your wondrous deeds.”
-Psalm 26: 3-7 ESV-

The people that we spend our time with have a big effect on us throughout our lives. Friends are often our support system, sounding board, confidant, and so much more. Statistically, as we get older our friend group gets smaller and smaller. I think that this shift is probably for many different reasons. One of my guesses is because we want to focus on a few deep relationships rather than multiple surface level relationships. I also think that our inner circle gets smaller because we slowly get to know ourselves better. I feel like throughout my life I have always been one who jumped around from friend groups a lot. I cycled through different friend groups depending on who I saw throughout the week. This usually meant that I had my church friends, my theater friends, and then whoever I has class or lunch with that year. Through my changing activities and schedules, my church friends were always a constant group in my life. For a while I thought this was just because youth was always Sunday nights so it was fairly easy to keep these relationships going because we had a weekly event to go to. 
As I have gotten older I have realized the importance of friends that have similar beliefs and values. I have a lot of friends who are extremely important in my life and are not Christian. I think it is important to have people around who are different from you and have different perspectives and points of views. That being said, I think that it is vital to have other Christians in our inner circle. When we have Christians to turn to in life, they can constantly be pointing us towards God. I think that this verse from Psalms is telling us to be careful who we invite into our inner circle. I don’t think it’s only saying that bad influences are not good people to surround ourselves by. To me, it’s a reminder that we get to experience His steadfast love through each other. It shows me that it’s much easier to walk in faithfulness with a friend by your side that understands your beliefs. As Christians we can support each other, and be an instrument of God in one another's lives. So who is in your inner circle? Who are the people that you turn to when you need to talk, celebrate, mourn, or just do life with? In my experience, life is always a little easier with people by my side who understand what I believe and want to help me “walk in faithfulness”.
To Read More: Psalms 26

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