Thoughts from Hawaii

As many of you know, I spent the last week in Hawaii (rough life, I know). It was a great time of relaxation, refreshment, and Trojan victory! I can't believe after being in school only a week, a week off was exactly what I needed. Anyways, while I was there I got to spend time with Grubbs, a great friend of mine who was in my fraternity 2 years ago. We had great times all around, from climbing a waterfall to cave diving in shark's cove.

Shark's Cove. Can I be back in Hawaii now?

On Sunday, though, he took us to his home church, New Hope Diamond Head. It was a great service. Fun, family-like worship, and a great message. In fact, the message really struck a chord with me and I wanted to share it with all of you.

The title of the message was "I don't need help! I know what I'm doing." It was the last in a series about identity theft. I'm just gonna quickly go through my notes:

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm. Proverbs 13:20

He made a few points that were really interesting. First, when it says "walks," that really means "does life with." Therefore, those who you do your life with will make you wise, if you surround yourself with wise people. On the other hand, if you are a companion of fools (notice it doesn't say walks with, just companion of) you will suffer harm. Fools bring you down.

His first fill in the blanks for our notes was: The people you do life with impact your future. Your friends determine a big part of the direction and quality of your life.

That changed my perspective on my friendships. I need to surround myself daily with wise friends and not become companions of fools. Now that's not to say you must completely disassociate yourself from non-Christians or anything; instead you must not get too attached and suffer harm because of it. Keep on loving them though, just wanted to clarify that.

His second point is: We need to start building structured relationships with people that want to be biblically wise.

And here is a good verse to go along with it:

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. Hebrews 3:12

Now I'm not saying that my friendships aren't biblically wise. Quite the contrary; my friends are extremely biblically wise and it is such a huge blessing to me. However, I know I want to structure those relationships a little more so God gets brought up more. I love getting into those deep convos about God, but they don't happen as much as I would like. And that is totally on me. I shouldn't be afraid to bring up God more, especially when I know my friends enjoy those convos just as much as me.

Secondly, when it says encourage in that verse, that doesn't just mean telling each other "great job! Keep up the good work." That is part of it, but it also includes comforting, pushing, calling out, building up, confronting, informing, etc. That word, like most in the bible, is a loaded word that we must pay attention to.

This plays into his final point: We need to avoid shallowness and go deep when building relationships with the wise.

I was talking to a friend last night about how much I love reading Christian books and writing out what I'm learning on blogs, and how it makes me wonder if I want to go to seminary. I'm realizing that I don't need the Internet to share my thoughts; I can just talk to my wise friends. Chances are, I have stuff to share and they will have stuff to share. It's a way better two-way street than blog comments. and It's actual interaction as opposed to typing.

God has blessed me so much with great community, and I'm just sitting here complaining that we don't go deep enough. Maybe God is trying to tell me something? Like maybe I should be more intentional in all my relationships. Definitely. Touche God.