Who influences you?

[Diamondlight]

Friendships

It is really helpful if we know what our basic personality type is. I'm not talking about taking a test online, some of those can be wildly inaccurate although some (usually those you have to pay for) can be authentic. What i mean is: outside of the enemy doing his tricks, we can often be our own worst enemies. Some of us have no idea of our strong or weak areas, whether we are extrovert or introvert, mostly an ideas person - creative, mostly logical or practical etc. (you get where i'm going) The reason it is vital we know some of these basics when making friends, is because it is sometimes ignorance of who we are that can trip us up. Mixing with the wrong crowd can at least, have a lot of relationship problems that cause us grief but at worst, we end up slowly drifting away from the Lord.

Never let a person CHOOSE you.

The best way i can explain this one is to give you a personal example.

In the past, i have given the enemy an inroad by allowing people to choose me as their friend and simply feeling pleased that they had done so because they were quite popular and i liked them and/or because i felt wanted/important/special/needed... Sometimes we can join ourselves to others who seem to be going somewhere in life, particularly if you feel YOUR life is a bit stale or stagnant - it's an easy trap to fall into. We see all the fun they have, we like their personality, their confidence, the amazing stories they tell us and others who are equally impressed.

One person who chose me we a guy called Jody who rocked up at our church one day when he moved from North to South of the country because of a split with his wife and had recently become a Christian, was full of enthusiasm and big plans for God. He settled in our church and everyone loved him because he made things happen; a great organiser and leader-type (though not a leader - i'll qualify this later). Dressed sharp, prayed with bold faith in church and the next week had amazing stories of how God had moved. It seemed like this man was annointed.

Well, myself and a few others became his FRIENDS. For me, mostly because he would contact me a lot asking me to get involved with various events and he kept telling me God had big plans for me and that i was special (yea, that will do it!). All of this was okay until a few things started to niggle me about his behaviour. Drinking maybe slightly too much, not drunk but so close to that line; telling another friend i the group who used to be alcoholic that Jesus had set them free and that if they really believed that, they would relax and have a drink as normal; making slightly off colour remarks about other men in a bisexual kind of way etc... None of these things by themselves were huge red flags to me as, let's face it, we all say dumb things every now and then or get a bit close to a line. I just thought they were one offs and thought, no one is perfect for goodness sakes.

In church he was amazing, but in friendship these little niggles grew until i didn't feel i could easily extracate myself from the friendship. I spoke to one of the assistant leaders and was told that yes Jody has some rough edges like Paul the Apostle, sure, but to help him rather than come and complain about it. The trouble was, i had entered into the friendship in an unbalanaced way where Jody had all the influence and i had none over him, so that solution was never going to work. I had allowed Jody to choose me but i was not aware enough of my own weak areas (persoanlity-wise) enough to be able to know that a close friendship was not a good idea.

Other people in our group also began to have problems with some of Jody's behaviour too culminating in a situation in a gay bar that got out of hand (apparently he had convinced a few people to go there 'witnessing') and i started to put the picture together at last. Jody wasn't a bad person, wasn't evil, wasn't intentionally trying to mislead anyone but his weak areas hurt and unhelpfully influenced a few other Christians where one in particular, fell away from the Lord. That could so easily have been me too!

I know now that some of these behaviours were evident from the beginning but that i wasn't guarding my heart - i was too bowled over by the big personality and the feeling of being chosen by someone who was really popular and 'annointed'.

When he realised he had lost his influence in church, he didn't want to stay and moved away to, who-knows-where, to start again. I hope and pray that he did eventually settle in a church and work through his issues with a church family.

Everyone said he was a leader, that it was obvious, even i thought that too but i now know that leadership isn't about big personalities and the ability to persuade and influence others.... but about servanthood, about humility and about setting a good example and working hard without having to have the notoriety and attention for what you do.

We must look CAREFULLY at our friendships. If we are a new believer or someone who is influenced by others a great deal then it would be most helpful if the vast majority of our friendships are stable, experienced Godly people who encourage us to grow and live better lives in Christ. It is also important to have a couple of friends that we ourselves are encouraging towards Christ, so that we have an outlet for the blessing we receive but the balance of friends must always be relevant to who and how we are. As a new Christian (aside from this incident with Jody) i had majority stable, experienced Christian friends and 2 unbelievers who i was close to, both of whom finally came to Christ thank goodness! Now, as a more experienced, stable Christian myself, i have a few solid, close Christian friends and more unbelievers who i'm close to... HOWEVER.... none of those unbelieving friends have personality-types that i allow to influence me. I purposefully avoid any friendship area that have the potential to harm my relationship with God.

Important for unbelieveing friendships but also as important for Christian friendships too.

• Gossip
• Slander
• Jealousy
• Anger
• Divisiveness
• Quarrelsome
• Self-seeking

I'm talking about a repetitive pattern of behaviour with one of these.
If you bring correction to this Christians AND they hear it and are influenced for good, then that might be a healthy balance of influence. If they do not hear it, then you might want to think about restricting your contact with them as much as possible. The balance of friendships differ for everyone, find out what works for you and encourages you towards God. If you find you're always having problems with besetting sins and good intentions turn to dust, then look at what is influencing your life and who is in that WITH you.

It might be hard to decrease your contact with certain friends and increase it with others who influence you towards Christ, to enable more positive habits to form in your life but with PRAYER, the value of doing that is, you will be a stronger, more stable Christian who is able to have a better relationship with God and be of much more use to God as his vessel.