Thankful for Good Friends, And Choosing Friends Wisely

Mold Your Children To Be Thankful For Their GOOD Friends, (And To Choose Them Wisely!)

How important are friends to children? Probably more important than we know! But do our children know how to choose good friends?

The Bible tells us to choose our friends carefully. This is difficult for some children, so we must mold them to be kind to everyone, but at the same time, choose only friends who are GOOD for them.

God wants us to spiritually grow and mature in our walk with Him! He will help us to choose true friends in this life to help transform us! Sometimes we lose friends - and this saddens us, but we must know that God will take friends out of our lives because they may be negative influences on us. They may be holding us back spiritually, and if we find that they criticize us for wanting to grow in Lord, then we know that God has taken them out of our lives for a reason.

You know that if your children start hanging out with the wrong type of crowd, they can become very easily corrupted in a very short period of time! This is something that worries me as my son will be starting school in just over a year! As a result, you will become very protective on who your children will be choosing to be their friends once they become old enough to start choosing who their friends are going to be.

It is the exact same way with God the Father! This is why God will be moving very early on to take out these negative influences in your life. Once this starts to happen, you have to go with the flow or you could cause God to start pulling back on you. And once that starts to happen, you could start to backslide and everything could start to shut down!

If you will allow God to remove the people that He does not want you to have in your life - then what He will start to do is to bring in the people that He will want to have in your life. I call these types of friends "God-friends." These people will be other godly, Spirit-filled Christians who are truly walking in good stead with the Lord and they will now be the people that He will want you to share your walk with!

I encourage you to tell your children the story of David and Jonathan in 1Samuel 20:4-17. They are good friends, and though Jonathan could feel sad or angry with his friend for being able to become King, he is glad. Tell your children that these friends are GOOD for each other. Teach them to be sure to thank the Lord for their good friends, and to watch out for those who are trying to lead them in the wrong direction! Just because we are supposed to be kind and loving to all, does not mean that we can be friends with everyone!

"The righteous should CHOOSE HIS FRIENDS CAREFULLY, for the way of the wicked leads them astray." (Proverbs 12:26)