... the text for June 23, 2020

Do not be mislead. Bad associations spoil useful habits. - 1 Cor. 15:33

A recent book I read had a chapter entitled "Have friends who want the best for you". It went on to explain how environment and association affect your own progress in life. Some people have friends who do not want the best for them, but the best from themselves and will take advantage of you to attain that goal. That's unfortunate, but it happens.

The Bible makes the same conclusion in other places. Proverbs says, several times, that bing with wise people will make you wise, associating with unwise people will make you unwise.

So, the scripture above carries the warning not to be mislead. Don't kid yourself. Don't suffer delusions that if you hang out with someone who doesn't have good qualities that your good behavior will rub off on them. It can have the oppsite affect, and that can be dangerous.

When I was in school, a kid I knew was in my class. I knew his family, was friends with his sister, who was in my congregation. He didn't go to meetings himself, but we knew each other. One of the teachers approached me and told me that this kid has come to her and was trying to improve his grades. Why? Because I was doing so well in the class, that he wanted to imitate me and my example.

So, it's not wrong to want to push yourself to a higher level. But you need to associate with the right people. You have a good friend that you want to do well in life, so you help him or her to attain their goals. They in turn want the same for you, so they will help you attain your goals. It's much more difficult to look at someone and think, "That person will do this or that for me and I will improve my life." It doesn't wsork that way.

This book gave an illustration. This man was manager of a department that was a well oiled machine. Everyone got to work on time, they dressed appropriately, the got their job done. In another department, there was one employee that was always late, did sloppy work and had behavior problems. So, an executive thought moving this person to the top department would "straighten him out". So, they made the trasfer. Within the six months, the morale of this top department was damaged.


What happened? Well, when the good employees saw the misfit employee come in late from lunch, leave early, make a lot of mistakes, they thought to themselves, "Why work harder? This person take advantage of everything and he's just complacent and all, so why bother?"

And so it goes. We need good association to make ourselves excel, but we can drag another person down if we're not excelling. Do we want to be bad association for someone else? We would not knowingly do this, but sometimes it happens. Having a friend who wants the bes for us, he or she is in a position to be a positive influence, to correct us when we're wrong, to commend us when we're doing well.

So, while we avoid people who have bad habits, we have to try to maintain good habits and help others do the same. Our preaching work is a wonderful thing to do, because we're trying to teach others to benefit themselves and all of us can praise Jehovah together.

Stay safe!