The Friends We Choose.....

This thought has me a little twisted up, but felt the need to share.

This morning in Sunday School, our teacher touched briefly on some old testament history. He mentioned that 'back in the day', when a King didn't like what a prophet foretold, he would often go find a different prophet that would tell him what he wanted to hear. Sounds funny and silly, doesn't it?!!

Well...that made me think. Yea, I know. Happens every once in a while. I started thinking about how we today surround ourselves with people that will tell us what WE want to hear too. We don't necessarily think of our friends as 'prophets', but don't we tend to gravitate toward people that do/say/think similarly to ourselves?

So this isn't always a bad thing, right? No, but it can be. I'm thinking of 'at church'....maybe even (yep) at the church I attend. As a Christian, I may feel as though something I do is fine, it's just a little bitty sin. Surely lots of other people feel the same way. And it's really ok....I mean...it's not really a sin. Maybe this itty bitty sin is GOSSIP. I'll bet that the friends that I keep, especially those at church, ALSO believe that gossip is just an itty bitty sin. So here I am, at church, with my church friends, and we're all having a blast gossipping. It's fun, and we're all doing it, and we're all good church-going people, so it's all ok! Woohoo!! Therein lies my point.

Here's the part that has me twisted up. 15 years ago, that itty bitty sin for me was drinking. I stayed the pious, quiet, sweet little girl at church until others that shared the same itty bitty sin bubbled up around me and *POOF*! Guess who my church friends suddenly were?? We were all good little Christians at church but our afterhours fun probably didn't qualify at good, healthy Christian living. BUT...a couple of these friends have turned out to be my most beloved friends in the world!! Interestingly, we've all pretty well moved past those partying days, kids and old age will do that and maybe if we hadn't we all wouldn't still be such good friends. Either way, I can't feel TOO badly about our becoming friends initially because I love these ladies like sisters.

My eyes are open though.....gotta watch how I congregrate and who I choose to surround myself with. I need to make sure that those that I choose don't just happen to be people that support my bad habits. Not that I have any. Not even little bitty ones.