Choose Your Friends Wisely

You possess the power to choose your friends. These are crucial decisions that can shape your life for years to come. Your friends are an essential part of growing up and helping to develop who you are as a person. It is crucial to use wisdom when determining who you spend time with. As a teen, you likely already realize how your friends influence your choices and attitudes. From the clothes you wear to the words you use, the people around you can affect you in many ways.

Developing friendships can be likened to merging into traffic on a highway. Imagine driving a car and preparing to merge onto an expressway with vehicles traveling 70 miles per hour. As you accelerate on the entrance ramp, you must search for an opening and blend into the flowing traffic. When done successfully, everyone moves in the same direction and at comparable speeds. If not done correctly, it can lead to an accident with negative consequences.

As with merging onto a busy highway, it is essential to choose friends who are traveling in the same direction and at a similar speed as you. This means you must find people who share your values and goals. The friends you make must be compatible with your pursuit of living God’s Way. This can be difficult in today’s world.

Solomon wrote, “He that walks with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools will be destroyed” (Prov. 13:20). The word “destroyed” in this verse can also be translated broken. Which of these two outcomes you achieve—becoming wise or broken—depends on who you choose to spend time with.

There are various challenges to finding the right friends, such as being shy or introverted or living far from other Church teens. But stepping out of your comfort zone and reaching out to others is integral to forming lasting friendships.

The friendship choices you make will have long-lasting effects on your life. Make the right decisions and you will surround yourself with people who support and encourage you as you journey through adolescence and beyond.

What Is a Friend?

Is it difficult to find friends who share your beliefs and values? Do you wonder if it is okay to be friends with people who are not in the Church?

In a perfect world, everyone would know and live God’s way of life. People would know to go to services on the Sabbath. They would learn to keep the Holy Days. They would understand God’s laws and principles of health. But we do not live in a perfect world.

So what do you do when you find yourself spending time with people who do not share your beliefs? First, understand that you can categorize friendships differently. There are acquaintances, casual friends, close friends and intimate friends.

An acquaintance is someone you see often and know by name, such as the person whose school locker is next to yours or the classmate you are assigned to work with on a project. Your interactions are cheerful and positive, but your relationship with this person may or may not go much beyond this level.

A casual friend is someone with whom you are a bit more involved. You may know them personally and their family members. This could be a friend you had before God called your parents into the truth, someone in your neighborhood that you play basketball with, or someone you occasionally get together with to play games. You have things in common with them and enjoy their company. Even if they are not in the Church, they still understand and respect your beliefs.

A casual friend is someone you spend more time with and are comfortable explaining your beliefs to if they ask. While this friendship level is probably as far as you would want to go with someone not in the Church, you can still consider this person a friend.

The next stage is a close friendship. You interact even more with someone at this level, and there is a deeper level of trust. Your bond may be stronger because your friendship has been tested by challenges or disagreements that, in the end, fortify the relationship. You naturally feel more comfortable opening up to this person, including sharing the challenges you face living as God expects. This level of friendship is most natural with someone who shares your beliefs. You trust them, value their opinion and enjoy spending time with them.

The highest level of friendship is intimate friendships, also known as best friends. You get along with these people exceptionally well and naturally enjoy spending time with them. Your personalities blend seamlessly together, and you may share similar backgrounds. You may communicate with your intimate friend in person and through calls, texts and emails. These friends influence you the most—you genuinely care what they think and value their opinion.

However, it is essential to recognize that you should reserve this highest level of friendship for someone in the Church with the same values.

Staying strong in your beliefs can be challenging if you become close and intimate friends with people who do not share your principles. On the other hand, if you forge friendships with people who are also living God’s Way, it can strengthen your faith and encourage you to grow spiritually.

A big takeaway from what we have looked at so far is that, yes, it is okay to be acquaintances or casual friends with people who do not share your beliefs.

However, you should only be close and intimate friends with people in the Church and prioritize your relationships with them (Gal. 6:10). This of course does not mean you should dismiss or mistreat everyone else. But your focus should be cultivating and deepening friendships with those of like mind.

A great place to find friends who share your beliefs is at Ambassador Youth Camp. No doubt, all of you who have applied and been accepted are excited to go. At AYC, everyone understands and is taught God’s Way. Attendees and staff are in harmony and have the same overarching goals in life.

Another big takeaway: Fellow teens in God’s Church should be the group with which you form your deepest, most personal friendships.

In the World

Whether someone is an acquaintance, casual buddy, close pal or even an intimate friend, they will impact how you act and what you become. You must think through who you choose to hang out with. The goal is to have friends who will make a positive difference in your life.

Some advice from Jesus Christ can help guide you. He said that Christians are “in the world” but not “of the world” (John 17:11, 16). What does that mean?

To understand, consider the difference between in and of. Think of the word “in” as referring to a location. Every person living and functioning as a part of society is “in” the world. The alternative is being a recluse, huddled away on a deserted island or some other remote location. By acknowledging that we are “in” the world, Jesus tells us we must learn to interact as ordinary members of our communities, schools and workplaces.

Some people think being a Christian means isolating yourself completely, but this is untrue. There are plenty of good things in the world, such as playing sports, watching wholesome TV shows and listening to the right music. You should not be afraid to enjoy these things.

But you should not be driven by the same things that motivate the rest of the world.

Many things in the world can be harmful to you. This is where Christ’s warning to be not of the world comes into play. The word “of” refers to the origin or motivation of our actions. It is what provokes or drives us to do what we do. Christians cannot be driven or motivated by the world. We cannot be of the world by involving or entangling ourselves in its ways.

Worldliness will harm your personality and your future well-being. It has taken many teens (and adults) out of the Church and entirely out of God’s Way. To learn much more about what worldliness is, read our Pillar article titled “Avoid Worldliness.”

Being “in the world” but not “of the world” can be tricky, but it is possible. You should still be friendly and approachable to everyone, whether they are in the Church or not.

Teens in the Church who attempt to separate themselves from society too much can grow up isolated, unbalanced and incapable of fostering close relationships. The other extreme is that they eventually leave the Church in pursuit of the same worldliness they tried to incorrectly avoid.

Jesus spent time with people in the world (Matt. 9:10-13), but He remained faithful to His beliefs. You can learn from His example by letting your actions speak for themselves. You do not have to preach or force your beliefs on others. Just live a good life, and people will notice.

This partially explains why Jesus said men do not light and hide a candle under a basket. We must connect with those outside God’s Way so that our lights can shine, allowing our friends and others to see our good works and glorify God (Matt. 5:15-16).

However, you must be careful even when allowing your light to shine. You do not want your candle to turn into a spotlight. Yes, you have been taught amazing knowledge from the Bible, but there is no need to stick out like a sore thumb among those your age. Avoid badgering others with your beliefs. No one likes a preachy, know-it-all type. Being “in the world” also means we must blend in with our surroundings to a certain extent. Be balanced and let your good example shine.

Choosing the Best Qualities

In I Corinthians 6:9-11, the apostle Paul listed various destructive behaviors, such as sexual immorality and idolatry. But he likely surprised the Corinthians by admitting that he and some of them had done these same things. This teaches us not to be judgmental and to avoid looking down on others—especially when choosing friends.

Though we are in God’s Church, we are not perfect. Nor should we expect those we associate with to be.

That said, there are good qualities we should look for in our friendships. People tend to categorize us based on the company we keep, so it is crucial to seek out those with similar positive qualities or attributes we would like to develop. For instance, we can look for clean-cut people with neat appearances since, to use an extreme, those who dress like thugs or have facial tattoos would give off negative impressions that reflect on us.

Similar personalities and interests also make for suitable matches. For example, if we are outgoing or passionate about science class, we may find good friends among those who share those qualities. And befriending those with interests we would like to share can be helpful too. We can learn from those who are good at math or sports or are organized, even if it is not a strong suit for us.

Avoiding those with obvious poor qualities, such as class clowns, troublemakers and slackers, is vital. Overbearing or strong personalities can also be challenging to deal with, especially if they are not in the Church. These types of people can strongly influence you and make it more difficult for you to tell them no if they try to get you to do something you know is wrong.

We should strive to be around those who are open-minded and have a more flexible, easy-going personality.

Avoiding cliques and being balanced in our associations can help us avoid standing out unnecessarily. While we should give people a chance, we should also know our limits and be willing to move away from associating with someone if it becomes clear they are a bad influence. For example, we may be comfortable being around some classmates but recognize that it is better not to spend time with them outside of school.

A caution: Being in the Church does not automatically make someone a good friend. We should be mindful of the fruits or actions of our close and intimate friends. If a friend in the Church is not doing the right thing, we can help them by telling them they are out of line. If the matter is serious enough, we can let our parents know.

Wisely choosing friends is an integral part of growing up. By understanding and applying God’s principles of friendship, we can find companionship that will positively shape us for years to come. Understanding what friendship really is, what constitutes a friend and how to choose the right one will make all of this less intimidating and more fun.

Starting today, consider the ways to choose your friends wisely and go out and apply them. You will be glad you did.