Walk With the Wise
So I was with a friend talking this week and she said something that struck me as profound. Thinking back, all she really did was tell a personal piece of her story that was not actually meant to be advice to me in all likelihood. But somehow the story implanted in my brain and grew into a bold new concept for my life.
The new concept (which really isn’t new, and which I know for a fact did not originate with me) is this: I need to surround myself with the people I want to become more like. If I know who I am and what kind of life I ought to live- want to live- I need to surround myself with people at various stages with or ahead of me in life who are role models of what I want to become. I may not agree with them at every level- I may not share all the passions they share in life- I am not meant to actually become just like them- but I want my influences to be people that I truly admire- whose lives speak louder than their words. There are plenty of good people in my life- but I have to know the ones who stand out to me- whose lives speak into the fabric of my life- whose call echoes my own. Because those are the people who are blazing a trail to the intentional. Wholly abandoned.
Proverbs 13:20
20 Walk with the wise and become wise,
for a companion of fools suffers harm.
Our lives are so short and it is so easy to take the path of least resistance. It is easy to never think critically about where we are, how we got there, if we should make a change. It is hard to walk away from a part of your life that is very familiar to you in order to make a canonball splash in the world, changing it for the better. On the other hand, it can be just as hard to stay where you are- fight through the sameness- and be a voice. Speak boldly and with conviction in a way that can also change the world. It can be hard to come face to face with what is wrong with this world and how hard it is to combat- yet how much worse to know what exists and never take the stand we knew we should.
James 4:17
“17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”
1 Corinthians 10:31
“31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
So whatever good we do- we have to know with what purpose we do it. We must live life intentionally- and to do that we must have vision. Having those models in our lives helps remind us what our true vision is- and the sacrifice it takes to get there. Yet those that we follow are likely those who would also say they would never change a thing- as hard as it gets- as crazy as it seems.
2 Corinthians 4:17
“17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
They will also be the first to tell us that nothing they did is of themselves- that except for the grace of God and his love flowing through them, their lives would be empty and void.
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All I know is, I'm proud to be hanging out with you !