This Changes Your Friends 

By Joseph Worsham

When I was in high school, my group of eight friends and I decided that we would call ourselves the PING Squad. This stemmed from our love of playing ping pong together every day on a table in the back corner of the lunchroom—yes, I know that name is cringe. 

Looking back, that name represents nothing but trouble and frustration to me. Breaking down a hotel room door on a mission trip in Mexico (a story for another time), messing with kids that wanted to hang out with us, and even some fights from within the group are just a glimpse of how we operated. When I got home at the end of each day, I always felt so guilty and just overall exhausted. I knew I was dishonoring God in my speech and my actions while hanging out with my friends, but I didn’t want to do life by myself. 

One day, I met this guy who really loved the Lord, and we instantly became friends. I knew this was God trying to show me something. Instead of getting into trouble with me, He would ask me what I’m reading in my Bible. He seemed to care more about my relationship with God than I did. God was showing me that true community and friendship should be built on love for Him, not on sinful things that are fun in the moment, but ultimately destructive and damaging. 

Not hanging out with PING squad anymore was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make, but since then I have grown so much in my relationship with the Lord. I also found out that it’s so much more fun when you have friends that love Jesus, too. 

As Christians, we aren’t supposed to live life on our own, but it’s not better to live life amongst friends who will pull you away from God rather than push you towards Him. 

In 2 Chronicles 18, we read about King Jehosophat, who did just that. When he started to spend time with King Ahab, who was a wicked king, he was deceived and got into a life-threatening situation. 

Now, I imagine most of your friends, whether Christian or non-Christian, probably aren’t trying to deceive you like King Ahab or put you in life-threatening situations (although it definitely does happen even today). But if your best friends aren’t leading you towards abiding in Jesus, you won’t grow in your relationship with God, and you could find yourself being drawn away from Him and into sinful and destructive behaviors. This isn’t to scare you or anything like that; it’s just a reality. Whether it’s drugs, alcohol, sex, toxic behavior, vanity, secular philosophies and cultural acceptance, or anything else, if you know that the things your friends are pulling you toward are not of God, I would strongly advise you to pray about whether it’s time to separate yourself from them. 

We all must come to terms with the fact that we are influenced by those around us. The Lord wants us to experience life in Christ to the fullest; that’s why He wants us to have godly friends! Not only that, you’ll have the most fun you’ve ever had!