“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17 NIV
“A true friend will not let you be less than you could be in God.”
My thoughts and comments today are about “friends and influence.”
I said farewell to Rich, a dear friend, this week. His suffering is over. For that, I am thankful, but the loss of his company and our conversations is painful to me. In that void, I find my thoughts today are about how friends shape one’s life. You are more the product of the people around you than you might realize. You give an awesome power of influence to each person invited into your life. Friends with whom you spend time ultimately shape your opinions, values, choices, and activities. The Bible says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17 NIV. Relationships bend your life’s direction, whether or not you mean them to do so.
Think about that for a moment. Significant people are the ones you choose to spend time with, and whose opinions really matter to you; they have influence. Who are significant people in your life, whose voice and counsel you always regard? Are they Godly influences pointing you to Jesus, urging you to be better than you would have been, lovingly requiring that you be?
Don, my dearest of friends for more than fifty years, reminded me that I had said to him, “Thank you for not letting me be what I would have been without you.” I do not remember saying that, but I hope I did. Because of the years we have spent together, I am different – my life, family, and ministry better – than would be true otherwise. And that is true of far more friends than him alone. God must have known how much I would need to be surrounded with such friends of Godly influence.
In the Bible, my favorite story of friends and influence is David and Jonathan. Jonathan is the King’s son in Jerusalem, heir to Israel’s throne and groomed to reign. David is a teen, just a shepherd’s son from Bethlehem, apparently with no royal ambitions – until God sent the prophet Samuel to his humble home to anoint a new King. Read 1 Samuel 16:1-13. David found himself chosen by God to lead a nation, when all he had led was his father’s few sheep. Can you imagine the insecurities he must have felt, or the questions? Why? How? Why me? He would never make that journey successfully without others to encourage and help. You don’t have to make your personal journey alone.
God brought Jonathan into David’s life. In Jonathan’s heart, God put an understanding of God’s calling and anointing for David to be king, and a love for David that provided an influential friendship that would groom David to rule. See 1 Samuel 18:1-4. Their lives were bound together in covenant love (1 Samuel 20:16), reaching even to the next generation. See 2 Samuel 9:1-13. David would not have reached his potential if not for the friendship and influence of Samuel, a person of authority who recognized David’s anointing – Jonathan, a true friend who embraced David’s Godly destiny – and Nathan, an honest prophet who spoke Godly correction and counsel. Those kinds of “Godly friends” are essential to your life.
More than any one person, my wife and best friend, my mother and father’s loving examples, spiritual “fathers and brothers” sharing their lives with me, staff pastors serving alongside, and gracious families in the churches we served, are influences touching my life still today. Friendships are for mutual benefit and ultimately for God’s purposes. Choose them wisely; avoid those detrimental rather than beneficial, subtly changing you as neither God nor you intend.
My prayer for you today is: choose influential friendships and be a Godly friend to others.