Can Your Close Friends Determine Your Future?
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” -Jim Rohn
“Show me your friends and I will show you your future.” -Anonymous
A friend recently texted me the following question: “ Who are your 5 closest friends?”
To which I responded with the following gif.
She laughed and I hope you did as well.😁
Truth is, I knew if I answered her honestly I may OR may not run the risk of hurting her feelings. Grant it, it is MY choice and MY right to list who MY top 5 are but the reality is - many people think they are closer to a particular person than they really know to be. OUCH! I know. 😬
>>SLIGHTLY DIVERTING FROM THE TEXT<< I tend to think that I have a pretty charismatic personality and many people consider me their “friend”. [DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a hidden message of any kind to any particular individual or persons. So please get rid of that thought and just read my message.] Truth be told, I choose who I disclose my family conflicts with, my challenging job decisions with, my prayer points with, my future business plans with, etc. I carefully choose who can possess those treasured items from my heart. For the people I consider my closest friends, the transparency filter used is not opaque. Early on in life I made the conscious decision to drop the term “best friend” from my personal vocabulary for a few reasons…
My best friends kept changing. (Can any one else relate? 🙄)
Depending on the day of the week, the ranking for “best” friend would change. (Ya know what I mean?🤔)
And as a young believer, I knew Jesus should be prioritized as my best friend¹. His friendship is reliable, dependable, and consistent. I just needed to work on my end of the friendship on earth. 😩
Due to those reasons I prefer to say, “My closest friends are….(and list my friends)”.
>>SEGUE BACK TO THE TEXT MESSAGE<<
Now the context above was mentioned to give validation to the point that the text message I received was the type of question that I did not need to correct or use a witty comment to avoid the question altogether. To be clear, I did respond to the question and she was NOT on my top 5 list of closest friends. 😮 She is on my top 7 list of closest friends. But she didn’t ask me for that.
All jokes aside, I believe the two statements at the header of this blog are cliche and I do not fully agree with them. As a thinker and change agent, I understand that I can’t stay at my current level of physical fitness, reading aptitude, international race relations insight, or financial stewardship and expect to grow or expand. I MUST be challenged and experience challenges. It is MY choice to have certain people selected as my close friends because there is a level of value I place in keeping them close. If I had to remix the two quoted statements, I would say, there is accuracy in knowing and understanding why you consider particular people closer in friendship than others. In other words, evaluate and understand the proximity in which you place friends. Explore your heart of understanding and ask why certain friends are closer than others. Are you valuing them like they value you? Do your friends expose their heart to you or are you typically the one exposing your heart in dialogue?
I have several friends, but their proximity in knowing my heart ranges. Some will feel and hear my heartbeat much closer than others. And that’s my business (in my Tabitha Brown voice). When I look at 1 Samuel chapters 18 and 20, the friendship between Jonathan, son of Saul, and David, son of Jesse, they model the role of being a close friend one to another. Here are two men who were able to have deep, meaningful conversations, protect each other in times of harm, discuss tough family dynamics, share personal resources, and more. So I encourage you to pause and evaluate the friends you have around you. Once you’ve completed your personal evaluation, determine if your close friends are the ones you need or want to support your future.
¹As a maturing believer, I also say the Holy Spirit is my best friend. The Holy Spirit is the BEST connection to Jesus Christ.