Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Sometimes you see hitchhikers by the side of the road. What are they usually holding? A sign, usually crudely lettered, and it doesn't have the name of the car they want to ride in on it. It has the name of a place on it; the place they want to go. On Indian reservations, hitchhiking is a way of life. I asked one of our Native American friends recently about her hitchhiking experiences. She told me she asked only one question before she got in a car. She didn't care about the make of the car, the driver's IQ, or where the driver was from. She only had one question, "Where are you headed?"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Who to Travel With."
Hitchhikers have a simple basis for deciding who they will travel with: is this person going where they want to end up? That's exactly the question we all should have in mind when we're deciding about who we're going to travel with.
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Proverbs 13:20. This is God's counsel concerning the people you hang out with, spend time with, make friends with, people you date, people you marry. "He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm." You tend to become like the people you spend time with. Like a hitchhiker, you end up where the people you are traveling with end up. God reinforces this point in 1 Corinthians 15:33. He just simply says, "Bad company corrupts character."
If you're going to make good decisions about who to travel with at your school, at your workplace, in your social life, you first need to decide what kind of person you want to become; what kind of goals you want to achieve. I hope you want to end up being a positive person, not a negative person. Who needs any more of those? You probably want to end up being caring, not self-centered, encouraging, not destructive, living for what really matters instead of just some attractive junk. And if you've been to the cross of Jesus to have your sins forgiven to belong to Him, I hope you want to end up being someone that Jesus is proud of; someone who lives for the One who died for you - not for some little earth-stuff. So decide what kind of person you want to be; what kind of attitudes you want to have. And then look for some people who have the same "destination sign" out as you do.
Your selection of friends, of associates, of romantic prospects may well be one of the most important choices you'll ever make because you will probably end up on the same road as they do. If you're with people who are spiritually careless, or just don't care, you'll probably end up there, too. If you're with people who are rebels, you'll probably end up wasting your life like they do. But if you hook up with some people who are going in the "make a difference" direction, the "live for other people" direction, the "live for Jesus" direction, chances are that that's where you're going to end up - going the direction where your life can mean the most and matter the most, and count for something lasting.
You can ask any hitchhiker, it really does matter who you decide to travel with. You don't decide who you're going to go with on the basis of how cool they are, or how well-connected they are, or how exciting their lifestyle looks - or even how they treat you. You ask that all-important, deciding question about who you're going to spend your time around: "Where are you headed?" You only travel with someone who's going to a destination that you're not ever going to regret.