Who are your best friends?

Who are your most influential friends?

There’s a difference. It’s easy to underestimate how much the people around us shape us.

Most influence doesn’t happen dramatically or all at once. It happens slowly, through ordinary time spent together. Conversations. Shared habits. Repeated attitudes. Over time, we begin to absorb the perspectives and priorities of the people we walk alongside.

That’s why Proverbs speaks so directly about friendship.

“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise…”

Notice the image: walking. This is not about a brief interaction or casual acquaintance. It’s about the people you regularly travel through life with.

• Their outlook begins to affect yours.
• Their habits influence your habits.
• Their values slowly press into your own.

You can see this in both positive and negative ways and you’ve probably experienced this in your own life. If you spend enough time around someone who constantly complains, and it becomes easier to complain yourself. If you spend time with someone who is thoughtful, patient, and grounded in faith, and you often find those qualities strengthening in your own life too.

We become more like the people we continually surround ourselves with.

That doesn’t mean Christians should isolate themselves from unbelievers or avoid difficult people. Jesus certainly didn’t do that. He spent time with sinners, tax collectors, and the outcasts of society. But He was influencing them, not being shaped by them. There needs to be a difference in our mindset around people who we want to have an influence on us and those we want to have an influence on.

There’s wisdom in honestly asking: who is shaping me?

• Who are the voices I listen to most?
• Who influences the way I think and speak?
• Who encourages me toward what is good, true, and faithful?
• Who leads me towards what is unhealthy, course, or even evil?

Those questions matter because spiritual drift is usually gradual. Rarely does someone wake up one morning completely different from who they once were. More often, it happens through countless small influences over time.

At the same time, this proverb is also an encouragement. Wise companionship is one of God’s gifts.

None of us were meant to walk through life alone. God often strengthens us through faithful friends, mentors, family members, pastors, and fellow believers who encourage us, correct us when needed, and point us back to Christ.

In fact, that’s one of the reasons being an active part of a faithful and loving church congregation is so important. You are surrounding yourself with friends who can encourage, lead, correct, and even call you to repentance. At the same time, you can help others by encouraging, lead, correcting, and calling them to repentance.

And sometimes, without even realizing it, you may become that kind of influence for someone else.

So today, consider the people you are walking with — and the kind of person you are becoming as a result.

Let’s pray…

Heavenly Father,

Thank You for the people You place in my life. Give me wisdom in the friendships and influences I allow close to my heart. Surround me with people who encourage what is good and faithful, and help me to be that kind of influence for others as well. Protect me from drifting toward what is harmful or foolish. Give me wisdom around friends who might be a poor influence. Above all, keep me close to You, that my life would be shaped by Your truth and grace.

Amen.

As part of your devotion time, I encourage you to also pray for at least some of the following:

• Your family
• Your local church
• Your pastor
• Some of your fellow church members
• The people on your B.L.E.S.S. list
• Your country and her leaders
• Your community

After praying for these people, you may want to finish your devotion time with the Lord’s Prayer…

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. They will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever and every. Amen.