"He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." (Prov 13:20) Life is not a straight line. Life is a circle and a cycle. Virtually everything that exists today has at sometime existed in the past. It might not have existed in the exact same form, but exist it has. And the bible recognizes this unfortunate phenomenon when it says, "There is nothing new under the sun" (Eccl 1:9). We may not know it but we are constantly running in a cycle. The earth keeps taking us round the sun repeatedly even without our consent. We don't have to choose the cycle. The Bible says, "Time and seasons happeneth to us all" (Eccl 9:11). The cycle of life and seasons is what I must reserve as a discussion for another day. Today, I want to talk about a special type of circle and how it impacts our lives. We all have this circle - it is our circle of friends. I want you to close your eyes and think of five of your closest friends. Remember their names, their faces, the type and color of the cloth they were putting on the last time you saw them. Now, imagine again that you and all your five friends are holding hands together forming a circle in the middle. Now imagine yourself trying to pull your friends to your direction... what do you think would happen? If you can't imagine this you may try carrying out this action practically by calling five persons and recreating this scenario. Now something happens when you try to pull your friends to your direction. Some of them will be willing and will naturally move themselves towards your direction. Some may be taken unawares and fall down by the unexpected pull. Some other may notice what you are about to do and stand their ground strongly making it impossible for you to pull them. This is exactly what happens with you and your friends in real life whether you know it or not..
Some friends will willfully allow you to influence them. Some will leave you for trying to influence them. And some will stand their ground and refuse any sort of influence from you. In all these three responses, the common denominator is you. You are the one who has to deal with these three sets of responses and trying to deal with them affects your mind and life in ways you cannot even begin to fathom
To be continued...