My biggest mistake.

              What a great weekend.  We have a new septic tank, we are now just waiting on the drain field.  That should finish up this afternoon and then we have to reseed the yard.  Saturday, we got to spend some family time on a much needed family outing on a bike ride.  Then we got to spend Sunday afternoon with friends playing games and sharing our lives.  What a great week end.  Of course Monday follows that, but that can't be helped.
              I can't help but feel rejuvenated after all that.  Even though I was spent after the bike ride, I felt great.  There was a smile on the entire family's faces even though you could see they were tired (at least the adults, the kids wanted to go again).  We thoroughly enjoyed it.
             I love being able to spend time with my sons and time near them is time well spent.  That being said, I think that for the rest of today's post I will share another excerpt from my answers for my sons.  This one is particularly close to home.

10-3 What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?  What can I learn from it?

I think of so many mistakes I’ve made when I am asked this question that it is almost impossible to answer.  I will give it my best though.  First, allow me to clarify something.  To me, a mistake is an error in judgment or a decision made based on faulty information.  It is not an intentional action nor is it something you plan.  While it would be wrong to rob a bank and a horrible decision, it is not a mistake, it is a choice. 

So, looking at it from that point of view, I believe my biggest mistake was my choice of friends growing up.  You see, I had some of the information and, while it was my choice to be their friend, I erred in my judgment as far as what my will power was.  My friends growing up were diverse and I had two sets.  The first set is not the mistake.  They were my friends from church.  They were Christians and as far as I can tell, they lived it.  No, my mistake was the second set.  They were my friends from school and around home.  They were the ones I chose to hang out with the most.  There is that word again, chose.  My mistake wasn’t choosing to hang out with them, or even to be their friend, no, my mistake was to believe that I was strong enough by myself to resist their ungodly influence.  You see, not one of my friends from school were Christians.  They didn’t even pretend to be good.  Still, I thought I could be strong enough to resist the temptation on my own.  Boy was I wrong.

By the time I had graduated from high school, you couldn’t tell a difference between the way I acted and how my friends from school acted.  I allowed myself to be led astray and to go down a path I still regret to this day.  Because of that mistake, I walked in sin for nearly 20 years.  I told coarse jokes, made fun of others, thought only of me and my pleasure.  I refused to acknowledge God and what he wanted of me.  In my selfishness, I blamed others for my failures and felt cheated when I didn’t get my way.  I tried to live by the rules I had learned in church growing up, at least when I wanted to convince others I was good.  I pretended to be a Christian when I was home to make my father happy, but I was no longer following Christ.  It all came back to the mistake of thinking I could do it on my own, to thinking that I could be friends with ungodly people the way they wanted to be friends, without falling into their lifestyle.  While it was a bad decision to be their friend and to continue in that relationship, it was a decision, not a mistake.  We need to be clear on that.  Bad decisions are not mistakes, they are bad decisions.

What can you learn from all this?  Simply put, trust in God.  Can you have non Christian friends?  Certainly, and you should.  You must, however, be on guard at all times and realize that without God and Christian friends, it is all too easy to fall away from God and into the ungodly lifestyle of your non Christian friends.   You must also be wary of the relationship with them.  A non Christian friend should never be your first source of advice concerning, well, anything.  This is because their advice, while it may sound good, is based on worldly teachings and not on what God says.  Sure, some of their advice may even be exactly what God says, but if you rely on their advice, you will find that God has no part in your life and you will regret it.  I know I do.  You must also never let their opinion of you be a reason to do something.  God’s opinion is all that matters and an ungodly friend does not know or even hear God’s opinion.

This may seem to be a bit harsh.  It may even sound like I am against having ungodly friends.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Even God encourages you to have friends among non Christians.  Read Luke 5:29-32: “29 Then Levi gave Him a great feast in his own house. And there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them. ³⁰ And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, ‘Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’
³¹ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’”

Jesus sat with the worst of the society with reason.  The key is to remain rooted in your belief and to not allow them to sway you.  You should also note that, while he sat with them, he did not count them as close friends, that privilege was reserved for his disciples, those who had already committed their lives to him.

In closing, the biggest mistake I ever made was not trusting God over my friends on earth.  Don’t let this happen to you.  Keep your eyes on him and you won’t go wrong.

           Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.