Day 3337 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Proverbs 13:20 NIV

From here wrapped within the warm embrace of a world fueled by companionship, while having others to lean upon is indeed a great gift, I fear we’re forgetting the danger of leaning upon the wrong shoulders.

Because the truth is that company determines character. The people we’re surrounded by, often by choices made for the sake of friendship or relationship, they gain a great opportunity to influence or introduce an entirely new set of understandings, opinions, assumptions and even aggravations. For such is seemingly all this world seems to care about anymore. Feelings and finding favor for the fame of a friendship’s fortune of validation and appeasement.

Indeed, though many would deny or otherwise disregard such a blatant fact as the following, reality is that all this world seems to know of friendship anymore is built upon nothing more than whatever the other person may offer that we assume we need.

And in this world at this time, what’s always in greater necessity than affirmation? What do folks seek more than justification? What is a bigger priority to most than personal preference and protecting opinion? And since such selfishness is seriously so severe down here, what’s more inevitable than our projecting ourselves upon those around us in the hopes of creating little minions who mindlessly agree with whatever we tell them they should be or believe?

We crave such power over one another, and what’s heartbreaking to me is that we’ve all but commandeered the beauty of companionship into this venomous corruption in which we basically just use one another until the other it tapped out of whatever we need them for, and then we walk away as if friendship is meant to be nothing more than a means to the end we want for ourselves.

And within this mess we’ve made of this opportunity God gave, we’ve come perilously close to all but forgetting the danger found in allowing this world to become a friend as doing so will only invite this world to invite us to drop our guard and entertain a return to the wasted lives from which we claim He came to save. We seem to be a bit too interested in what others can do for us and thus perhaps a not quite worried enough about what others can do to us.

No, it seems our eyes see only the prize without the courage to consider the cost.

Because again, the people we’re around influence us in ways that we likely don’t notice or take note of in the moment. Because we’re friends, and friends assume only the best in one another. Friends insist that they’re looking out for one another. Friends indeed should be able to be trusted to both want the best and be willing to fight for that betterment for their friend.

But is that a guarantee in this way of life in which this world’s come to wreck and wreak havoc on all that such wickedness can manage to wrangle and ruin? Not at all, and thus is why wisdom and the discernment upon which it’s defined is as crucial as it’s ever been before. Because the cold hard reality in which we walk is that far too many aren’t at all interested in even what’s best for themselves. Which now that I’ve typed it out, that does seem a right irony in regard to the rampant selfishness seen and shown within the shows folks perform.

Anyway…

I do think that discernment should be at the very top of the list of requests we humbly submit before God every day. The ability to determine right from wrong, safe from harm, growth from going under, it’s all so spectacularly important that it should be seen with far more importance than we do anymore. No, we just fly through life as if nothing bad can happen at such breakneck speed as we need to stay in step with a world standing against God in every way they can find to deny His design for sake of what it demands.

No, this world wants only the satisfaction of self, and such is the same settlement upon which we’ll stagnate should we assume safety and sovereignty in numbers as we’ve come to do more often than we should.

For in truth there is no safety in numbers, no wealth in them either. It’s something we’ve gotten so completely turned around that it’s amazing we’ve managed to make it this far. And perhaps the only reason we have made it this far is because we’ve been walking in the wrong direction at the instruction of those to whom we’ve surrendered control of our lives in exchange for the chance to call them friends, adding merely to the meager number of virtual acquaintances that now pass for a sufficient accounting of a life’s true outreach and outcome.

Indeed, we’ve arrived at this time in our minds in which we validate and valuate and evaluate our life’s worth and meaning based upon quantity of everything rather than retaining our understanding of the fact that quality is truly all that can ever matter. For what have we gained in a million ‘friends’ who lead us to the wrong end other than the chance to find ourselves in the betterment of growth found within the slimness of such things as honesty and humility?

Because it’s great to have a horde of homies, but if they keep us convinced that this is our home, then all we’ve gained is a chorus of liars leaving us for dead in a place we don’t belong.

Such is the reason for discernment’s necessity. For discernment is one of the only directives able to drive us through the distractions of a world so defiantly decided upon descending into the darkness of unending death as deserved by the disgusting depths in which we've demanded our delights define our desires to the demise of the determined direction demanded to find life after death.

Problem is far too many are driving the other way, which is exactly why God warns us against both friendship with the world, enmity as it is, as well as walking in step with the wicked or standing in the way that sinners take or sitting in the company of mockers. For “bad company corrupts good character.”

And there you have my point for today: Company determines character.

This hit me like yet another time bomb which finally ticked down to its destination just yesterday afternoon. My family and I were recounting our greatest regrets, a top-three of our greatest shames as seen in life thus far. We’re weird like that. But my three were, in order, sin/the mistakes made at its suggestion, then friends and the many wrong turns made from the right chances because of choosing the poorest of company, and then finally, college, really wish I hadn’t gone to college and wasted all that money.

Another day!

For today, I felt this need to share another lesson I’ve learned the hard way inside the gravity of hindsight showing me the mistakes I made without the chance to make better ones back then. Good character corrupted is without question the charge levied against me, and one of which I’m eternally guilty. At one time I had so many friends, so many amigos, homies, best bros, brothers from other mothers and all the other novelties in which we define our circles.

Problem is my circle was only circling the drain, and I just didn’t want to see it. For I knew only to walk in fellowship with fools, and thus I became what I am fighting so feebly against today. I am a fool, a sinner in the highest regard. I am indeed but a cretin as convicted in that life lived without concern for consequences or costs, just rather the fear of not having all those friends I trusted to be what I believe a friend should be.

How heavy to carry this realization that no, not everyone sees things as they should be. Perhaps far too few care to, so few in fact that such should define the hesitancy in which we hitch our wagons to another’s welcome. But alas, we don’t. For the warmth of being seen, being liked, being loved, being near another being brings us a sense of worth that makes us feel as though our lives are worth living.

But as we’ve talked about, if life worth living if it’s lived without the wisdom that appreciates the opportunity we’ve been given to be living?

You see, all those ‘friends’ I had, they didn’t think like that. Granted, we were kids then and kids are pretty good at not really thinking about anything. But I look back from where I am today, struggling sometimes to unwind the irrationalities which have set themselves up against the humility I know I need in order to be found and freed to follow the path I should have always taken, just never did. No, I see now just how many days I lived at the suggestion of those around me.

And the sins I found down that path are the kind that, while hope says they’re forgiven, seems to me the scars still show in ways that sometimes make me question how they could be.

If only I could convey the weight of a life lived in regret the size of heartbreak, but I’m afraid I don’t have enough words as I’m pretty certain that language just can’t accomplish such gravity. No, seems all that I can manage to imagine is again the warning found in that company determines character.

Yes, company determines character, or in the case of this world’s warm welcome into walking with them in wickedness, the lack thereof. For Scripture tells us to walk with the wise so that we too may become wise, promising the counter to consider should we be unsure, that the companion of fools shall suffer harm. For wisdom walks in such a way as to want always the way of best outcome rather than quickest payout whereas fools only care to hurry to what they want without considering the peril which may reside alongside such misplaced priority.

Indeed, it is truly foolish to seek incessantly the path of least resistance for what seems resistant is likely seen as such because it goes against the getting of our way.

Yet as the past has proven, perhaps getting our way isn’t always the gain we try to imagine. Sadly though, this world does not merely invite us to remain so lost within ourselves as to assume our wants are worth what we miss to get them, but anymore we’re entirely expected to do so and applauded every step we take deeper into the selfishness of sin as surrounded by the sound of best friends screaming their agreement to our life’s being lived for only our enjoyment.

And that’s the problem with choosing our company so carelessly as all of us have before.

What if some of the biggest mistakes we’ve ever made wouldn’t have become the regrets we now carry had we had the courage to be a little more lonely? What if those we trusted only led us to the turmoil of sins that seem so engrained in our minds that we can’t forget them no matter how much we pray? What if we’d have had a more peaceful today had we endured the fear of not fitting in back then? What if the shame we see in the mistaken path we’ve walked wouldn’t have been there had we not walked with those who insisted we go the way they were going?

What if we’d had the audacity to have lived a life that would have left us with the ability to say that peer pressure hadn’t ever gotten the better of us?

That’s why I’ll walk alone.

And I know that seems sad and strange and not something you’d think to see or expect to hear. And I don’t say it because I believe that God made us to be alone or to do this by ourselves, in fact I’m pretty certain that He didn’t. But having made so many mistakes in the past that have become regrets I can’t shake, made at the inspiration of those around me, I find only danger in allowing anyone too close, so close as to inspire me to do anything at all.

No, I personally feel that as I am the one who will answer for my life, I best be the only one living my life. And it just so happens that I know I don’t do that when around the suggestions of others masquerading as friends.

So I’ll walk alone, because, and here’s the point wisdom proves, I’m not alone. No, this world may look at my life and see loneliness. They may read these posts and pick up a certain hint of solitude to the attitude they tend to carry. They may hear of what I’m doing now, doing so little that seems worthwhile in the opinion of this place of profit and popularity. They may learn this perspective of mine and feel sad for me as they contend that no man is an island.

And that’s all okay. Because I’m not alone. Because wisdom is far from a lonely friend seldom seen only in times of need or worry. No, rather wisdom walks with us so as to guide us, not to what is popular or profitable, but rather toward what is proper and responsible. He teaches us incessantly His way, walks with us within it so that we can say with certainty that we do not walk alone but rather in the footprints of He who proved the Way to the promise of the Life found only in the Truth we will never know if we live as friends with this world of lies.

No, I will walk out the rest of this way following the Father who came as the Son to save me from the fear of loneliness and loss. And if such does, as such pretty much has, cost me my every worldly friend and any hope at any welcome remaining within this world, that’s fine. I’m good with it. Because again, I’m not alone. No, though they may not see who walks with me for sake of the blindness in which they die every day in disbelief, I’m walking with the One who overcame my underwhelming.

And while this world will think me foolish, again I’m not bothered by that. Because while this world may think it foolish to walk alone in the direction of a tomb, talking as much as I do about the death demanded to share therein, I’m walking with the One who has proven none who follow Him will have to stay in that grave. And well, that’s something this wicked world just can’t say.

Because when I die to a lonely life lived waiting for that loss of this world and all its limits and lunacy, I’ll die to life whereas those who seek not to walk with the wise but rather ignore the warning of the harm suffered for sake of companionship with fools, they’ll just die. And that does indeed seem the shattering outcome so many here assume death to mean. For that is what death will be for many, just death without end, but I will do whatever I can to walk with the wise, whatever it may cost in this land of fools.

For I have walked well with those who live as if they can deny hell. And thus I know plenty of the pain and misery which await inside the mistakes we make when we let this world live for us, lead us toward only friendship without the edification of wisdom being sought together for the better of both. No, this world is too far gone in the direction of self, and I know that road well.

And simply put, wisdom begs me to look for something better now. Because wisdom tells me we’re running out of time to find Him.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold