Even more, how many times as an Adult (and I use that term loosely sometimes) have I gotten myself into the same scenarios, by not listening to the Spirit within me as He whispered, "Do you really want to go there Dave? It's going to bring you trouble".
I'm reading "Simplify: Ten Practices to Unclutter Your Soul" by Bill Hybels and wanted to share this quote with you.
Evaluating Your Relationships
"Stupid Rubs Off "
When I was a boy, one of my good friends moved to the South, and I occasionally visited him for three or four days at a time. I always brought my mitt because we would play baseball at a park near his house every chance we got. Every time we left the house to go play ball, my friend’s dad would say in his deep Southern drawl, “Watch out who you hang with after the game, boys, because stupid rubs off.”
Stupid rubs off.
That was an expression I’d never heard up north, but I knew what he meant. He was warning us not to be influenced by other boys’ stupid decisions, things we knew better than to do.
Stupid rubs off in our grown-up world too. Perhaps you work in an environment where profanity flows like a polluted river all day, every day. Can profanity rub off?
Maybe you work in the financial services industry, where the whole game is making more money, no matter what it takes to get it. Can greed rub off?
At parties where the main event is alcohol consumption, can overdrinking rub off?
I went to a Blackhawks hockey game a few years back, and there were about a half-dozen fistfights during the game. Late in the third period, a bench-clearing brawl broke out. When the game ended, the crowd was all hyped-up. As everyone tried to exit, the normal jostling that happens when thousands of people exit a stadium soon turned into elbow throwing, shoving, and pushing.
I wondered, Can anger and violence rub off?
Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, was so aware of this unalterable reality that he admonished us to choose our friends wisely: “Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.”[69] "
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The point is..., we have to be careful as we walk our Roads to Recovery, who we walk with. Are they Wise - will they Lift you up? Or, are they the old crowd, who want your "old Self" to come back and party with them.
I can't count the # of times already, where I have heard other guys say " I was doing great in my Recovery and ran onto some old friends. They invited me along to to the Pub and I thought "Why not, I can handle it..." " Generally, those situations didn't end so well... What's Rubbing off on you today?
It's a New Year! A New Start. In Revelation Chapter 21, God had written:
" He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children."
Be New! Seek God!
May God Bless You and Keep you throughout this New Year - and beyond.
