When my oldest grandboy was thirteen (what I remember as an awkward age caught somewhere between childhood and adulthood and feeling as if I didn’t fit anywhere), he spent the weekend with his grampa and me. He and I had a lengthy conversation that included his sorrow that his best friends were moving away. He asked me to pray for him to find Christian friends at school. He said, “I don’t want to hang out with boys who talk dirty or are disrespectful, because when you are with people who act bad, you start acting like that, too, and I don’t want to be that way.” He is wise beyond his years to recognize he needs to choose his friends carefully. Yes, we are marching around in this world and we will encounter people who have no use for God. We should reach out to them in Christian love, as Jesus instructed us, but at the same time we must be wary of becoming so close their behaviors that do not honor God accidentally become our behaviors. For reasons beyond my comprehension, it’s easier to pick up bad habits than it is to maintain good ones. We all need likeminded Christian friends to come alongside us and encourage us to glorify God in the way we live. Please pray for our young believers to stay strong. They will be the leaders of tomorrow, and we want faith to carry into the future generations.
