Man Code entries are designed for parents or adults seeking to mold young boys into strong Christian men. Previous entries can be found here.

“Walk with the wise and become wise,  for a companion of fools suffers harm.” Proverbs 13:20

Son, we’ve already talked once about the importance of your friendships, but friendships are so vital we’ll talk about times numerous times in the coming years. In Man Code #3 we said that your friends determine the direction of your life, you determine your friends. The follow-up question to that statement is this: how do you determine your friends? That’s what I want us to talk about for a few minutes.

We all need friends because that’s how God designed us, to live in community (friendship) with other people. But most of us don’t pick our friends in the wisest way, because we’re picking them based on the wrong thing. The most common way to pick your friends is to pick them based on common interest. Who likes the same sports team as you? Who plays the same video games as you? Who likes the same music as you? That’s the most common way to pick friends, but is isn’t the wisest way to do it.

When you build your friendships based solely on common interests, you’re not taking into account their character. What does that mean? It means that as we get older, we grow and change. Some of us will choose to grow wiser while some of us will grow more foolish and unwise. It’s why the best friend you had in third grade may not be a very good person to hang around with in ninth grade. As you’re growing closer to Jesus, he may be growing farther away. Instead of encouraging you to become a man of God, that long-time friend may be tempting you to make unwise decisions that will mess up your life. But because you’ve been friends for so long, you feel loyal. You don’t want to abandon them. So you continue the friendship, and more often than not you make the same decisions your friends do, because as King Solomon wrote thousands of years ago, “a companion of fools suffers harm.” So, what should you look for in your friends? Solomon again tells us, “Walk with the wise and become wise.” Obviously you need to pick friends that you like to hang out with now, but be sure to pick friends that you want to become one day in the future, because sooner or later you’ll become like whomever you choose to hang out with.

Pick friends that share your values, friends that are honest, good, caring, respectful, hard-working and wise. Watch how they interact with their parents, how they treat others who are younger and weaker than them. Watch the decisions they make when no one is looking, how passionate and how real their relationship with Jesus is. Pick wise friends, and you’ll become wise yourself.

QUESTION: What are some values or characteristics that you want to start looking for as you build friendships?