Today’s theme is devoted to choosing our friends, our peers and life companions. I hope today’s topic can be of use to youth ministries, family devotionals, family home evenings and family counselors.

We may not always realize how our daily associations with the people we interact with influences our lives. One example might be that if we have a bad habit that we want to overcome, such as smoking. If we associate with people who share a similar habit, it would be harder to overcome that particular challenge. When we are constantly exposed to the aromas and actions of a habit that tempts us, it can be harder to break it. We might even have to resort to choosing alternative friends that don’t have the habit until we have successfully weaned ourselves of a habit.

There are other associations that can influence our lives. It would seem logical, that if we want to be closer to God, we would want to associate with people who share the same goal. People who enjoy doing activities outside a much nature will naturally be drawn to friendships with people who share a similar ambition. How many people find their marriage partner from the group of friends they buddy around with?

Here are two object lessons that make great illustrations on how friendships can influence one another.

A group of Charcoal briquettes:

Collect six pieces of charcoal and put them together and put fuel on them and start them on fire in a safe environment. Once the six coals are nice and hot use prongs and separate two of the hot coals from the six so that, four remain in one pile, and two are separated by themselves, thus making three separate piles of 4, plus 1 and 1. Notice how the four briquettes that burn together last longer because the heat from each, keeps them all hotter for a longer time. But each charcoal briquette that is sitting by itself will usually cool more quickly because it lacks any supporting heat. So positive family and friendships can be self-sustaining.

Celery display:

Place of collection of celery into a cup of water with red food coloring. Let it sit for a while. Eventually you will see that the food coloring is sucked up from the water and is distributed throughout the stalks of celery. Just like the celery is influenced by its surroundings so we are each influenced by our family and friendship relationships. We can contribute to such relationships providing either positive or negative results.

One important thing to remember is that we can often determine in advance a course of action. My invitation, is it for us to seek out relationships that will make us better than we currently are. I have some friends at a very well read and I admire their level of knowledge. I have other sets of friends that have excellent common sense and more friends who seem to have a close relationship with God. If I want to improve on these three attributes, it would be logical that I would seek such friendships to improve myself in these areas

If you have some ideas on what has been successful for you in establishing a positive family and friendship relationship. Please feel free to share it. Thank you.