Sometimes (many times?) change is hard. My wife tells me I don’t like change. This may be the way it is with most people.

Solomon knows that we may make choices in life that are hard to change. One area that is hard to change is the people with which we associate. It takes wisdom for a person to determine to no longer associate with unspiritual people. There comes a time when you have to honestly admit that they are influencing you more than you are influencing them.

Solomon doesn’t beat around the bush. He identifies clearly the kind of people he wants his son to avoid:

“…men who speak perverse things,
who leave the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness;
Who delight in doing evil…
From the adulteress who flatters with her words…”
(Prov. 2:12-16)

These may all be, overall, nice people. They might be funny, entertaining, and even charismatic. Yet wisdom screams that we should get away from such. They all have the tendency to turn others into being like them: people who have no relationship with God.

If we are wise, we will find good people and make them our true friends. Solomon says to his son “So that you will walk in the way of good men, and keep to the paths of the righteous” (Prov. 2:20).

Maybe it’s time for a change; for you to say to your friends, “I’m out of here!” Or, related to this, maybe it is time to say: “I’m done watching that TV show,” or “I’m finished going to that type of movie,” or “I’m not going to read that kind of material any more.” Realizing that these people and/or activities are pulling us down should make us pull away. That would be a wise choice.

Denny Petrillo