An important part of life is making, and maintaining, relationships with the right people. We’re not supposed to do life on our own. When we’ve got friends, we’ve got a support network and people to share the good and bad with. Being able to get along with other people and make good friends is a vital skill for us to have. Friendship requires time, energy, sacrifice, and investment. But we need to make sure that we’re being wise in working out which friendships to invest in. We shouldn’t be sharing the things we’re going through, or the big parts of our lives, with everyone. Solomon warns, ‘A man of too many friends comes to ruin.’ And not every so-called friend will prove to be one, as Jeremiah warned King Zedekiah: ‘They misled you and overcame you - those trusted friends of yours. Your feet are sunk in the mud; your friends have deserted you’ (Jeremiah 38:22 NIV). The wrong friend may betray us, as Judas did to Jesus. So here’s a good rule to remember: ‘Be friendly to everyone, but don’t have everyone as a friend.’ Solomon said, ‘The godly give good advice to their friends; the wicked lead them astray’ (Proverbs 12:26 NLT). If the advice our friends are giving to us isn’t so great, maybe we should be reconsidering our level of investment in the friendship. We need to choose friends wisely. The Hebrew word for ‘choose’ is tur, and in the Old Testament it refers to a man like a surveyor who searches out land. So if we’re wise, we’ll explore and evaluate our friendships before we enter into them.

What Now?

Think of one of your closest friends, write down all the qualities about them that you appreciate.