When I was younger, I had a friend whose name was
Jason and I spent a ton of time at his house.
Jason was a good friend and I had fun with him, but if I’m honest most
of the time I went to Jason’s because his house was awesome.
He had a pool and a big screen TV. We would stay up late and play Nintendo and
eat all kind of snacks – like hot pockets and pizza bagels. It really was the best.
But one thing that put Jason’s house over the top –
that made it better than all my other friend’s houses – was Jason’s family had
pets.
And I don’t mean your cute kitten, fluffy dog kind
of pets – I mean like real pets … weird stuff – like wombats and bullfrogs and
lizards. For a while they even had a
really big snake- I think it was a python.
But out of all of the pets that Jason had, my
favorite was the Chameleon. When he
first told me what it was I had no idea.
I had never heard of a Chameleon – and I didn’t even know what they
did. But once I saw it – I thought it
was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
Do you know what a Chameleon can do? A chameleon can change the color and pattern
of its skin just based on what it touches.
It has this unbelievable ability to camouflage itself – no matter it’s
surroundings.
I’m a “how it works kind of person” so my first
reaction to this sort of thing is to figure out how this happens. How it works is the Chameleon’s skin has a
superficial layer which contains pigments, under that layer are special cells
that change for various reasons which affect which pigment of light gets
reflected.
You know sometimes I think we live our lives like we
have Chameleon Skin. We have this
superficial layer, and we adjust what other people see – in order to fit in and
convince people to like us and want to be around us.
When you are the Chameleon it’s hard to realize that
you keep changing colors, but to everyone else watching it’s really obvious.
My mom used to tell me that she knew exactly who I
had been spending my free time with – like what group of friends. When I asked her how she knew this she said –
she would notice how I would talk, or what I would wear. She would notice how I would change and then
she could pin point exactly who I was hanging out with.
My mom picked up on this really big – universal
truth … this God principle that is directly connected to friendship. She didn’t
put these words to it – but she understood it.
And it’s a truth and principle about friendship that stands the test of
time. And she’s not the first or the
last to notice it … Solomon one of the ancient kings of Israel said it this
way:
“Walk with the wise and become wise, for a
companion of fools suffers harm.” - Proverbs 13:20
This week we continue
sharing about the seven checkpoints, the key ideas we see as essential to the
spiritual foundation for every child. Our next checkpoint is Healthy Friendship.
The people we associate with
the most will have a direct impact on the decisions we make and the standards
we choose. Healthy friendships build us
up and draw us closer to God; unhealthy friendships bring us down and cause us
to compromise what we know is right.
One foundational checkpoint
in the life of every child is to discover how to establish healthy friendships
and how to navigate out of and around unhealthy ones.
Solomon understood that those who want to be
wise surround themselves with other wise people. But those who surround themselves with
unhealthy friendships will often find frustration, pain, suffering and harm.
The principle behind this
truth about friendship is, your friends
will determine the direction and the quality of your life.
As a parent you likely know
just how true this statement is, and you already are concerned about the
friends that your child spends their time with.
Many things will come and go like phases in the life of your child –
however the impact a friend has is not one of those things.
We believe that it is
crucial to help your child discover what healthy friendships look like and how
to form them. We know that it’s vital to
teach them what to do to get out of and avoid unhealthy friendships. And intuitively we know that what might be
of greatest importance is teaching them how to be the friend who helps others
find and follow God.
Remember their friends will determine
the direction and quality of their life. So help them choose their friends wisely.
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