When I was growing up, I remember my mom and dad always asking me (when I was out with my friends) “Where are you going?”,”Who are you going with?” and then they would tell me what time I was to be home. I so wished they would ask one more question, “What time are you going to be home?”. But as it turned out there were two questions and a statement of fact.
When you were growing up, did you think that your mom and dad were being to nosey about your activities and too picky about the people you ran around with? My mom and dad knew something that I would one day learn later on when I had my own kids – they knew about peer pressure. As parents we know that it doesn’t always take much persuasion for, even those of us who were the perfect child (and I might add for my brother and sister knowledge) the most favorite child to turn innocent fun into behavior that could take a toll on our lives farther down the road. However, my parents (and my wife and I later on when our kids cam along) also knew that being with the right people would make this thing called “peer pressure” a good thing.
One of those things that I learned as I was growing up is that peer pressure isn’t something that automatically goes away when we turn 21 and begin to take on adult responsibilities. Just because I am no longer a teenage boy who dared to drive to fast and stay out late, doesn’t mean that I am not influenced by the “grown-up” friends that I have in my life. The guys that I golf with or meet for lunch can still have a very significant influence on what I do, think, and say, and what I consider to be normal. I had a dear friend in the church in Ravenna, Ohio, where I preached from 1980-1986, that told me, if I had not married Linda, that I would “be in jail.”
That’s why all of us need friends who make us want to be more like Jesus. Who will hold us accountable for the lives that we chose to live. We need people around us who have deep convictions and compassionate hearts. We do not need those people around us who have a church side and a public side. We need people around us who love their mates and invest their time in their kiddo’s lives. We need people around us who make us want to be even more Godly in our daily life. We do not need those people around us who will try to convince us, whether vocally or just by a certain look, that we’re taking this Christian life too seriously.
This verse has been popping up a couple of times in my studies in the past couple of weeks: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:27). If this thing of peer pressure is not going to go away and it is something we can expect to have around for a long time, then it falls heavily on our shoulders to be sure we’ve got some people around us who help us want to become everything we ought to be. – David Myers