Everyone Can't Come With You

the people closest to us have more influence than we sometimes realize. in episode one of *birds of a feather*, we’re getting honest about friendship, access, influence, and what scripture means when it tells us to walk with the wise.

not everybody needs to be cut off, but everybody doesn’t need the same access either. 🤍

📖 proverbs 13:20 | 1 corinthians 15:33

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Come closer. Come closer.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

Come closer. You are welcome here. Lay your burdens down. Lay your worries down. There is room for you. There is grace for you. Finding truth, finding peace, finding our way. Step by step, day by day. Honestly.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Honestly, I am as always glad that you are here. Today we are starting a new series called Birds of a Feather. Very much inspired by the popular phrase birds of a feather flock together. And we're talking about something I think is gonna get more complicated the older you get, and that is friendship. The more specifically, we're gonna talk about the company we keep while we're trying to grow with God. Because here's the thing you can genuinely love somebody and still have to ask yourself whether their influence belongs in the direction your life is going. And I want to be careful here because the internet has made us a little too comfortable diagnosing everybody. Mm-hmm. I am no doctor, I will not give you a prescription. I do not diagnose, ma'am. But one disagreement, now we're toxic. Somebody disappoints us, we just cut them off. They don't agree with every decision we make. Oh, God is removing people out of your life. And hey, those things might be true, maybe, but sometimes people are just people, and relationships are complicated. So this series isn't going to be about making a list of everybody we need to get rid of. We're going to look at ourselves, which I think is the most important part of the whole equation because that is the common thread in your friendships, is it not? Hello, okay. But we're going to talk about influence, accountability, changing friendships, and eventually ask whether we're actually being the kind of friend we're asking God to send us. So let's start with who has access to the person you're becoming. Now, as always, before we get into it, I always want to make this very clear. Everything I share here comes from my personal study of scripture, prayer, and what I'm learning in my own walk with God. I am a student of the word. There is no teacher at the front of this classroom. I am not here to tell you exactly what every relationship in your life should look like. I don't know those people, and I don't know the full story. What I can do though is open the Bible with you, give you some context to what we're reading, and share what I'm learning from it. Now, I always encourage you to read the scripture for yourself. Open up that word, get in that word, girl, study the surrounding scripture and pray about your own relationship and allow God to scream, not scream, speak to you and give you wisdom for your life. With that being said, we're gonna get into our first little segment called Let's Talk About It. And for this specific series, we're gonna talk about our circle, our very own little sister circle. Sorry, I need to clear my throat, but I've been thinking actually, since I wanted to correlate this little series together, I've been thinking about how differently we use the word friend. We can have a hundred people following us, thousands, even. We can have several group chats, co-workers that we're cool with. We all got a little work group of friends that once we leave the building, once we're off the clock, you don't even talk to them people. But while you're there, oh baby, that's family, okay? And you know, you might even have people that you've known since high school that you're still close to, somebody we call whenever something happens, but all of those people don't occupy the same place in our lives, or at least they probably shouldn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, you're trying to you're trying to put your check-ins and your savings and your savings and your check-ins, and they need to be separate, yeah, yeah. Everybody don't need to be everywhere. Hallelujah, amen. Okay, I thought I heard you say amen, girl, but that's only because there's a difference between knowing somebody and loving somebody and enjoying somebody, and then there's also allowing somebody to influence you, which I don't think gets talked about enough because influence can be quiet, and it isn't always somebody directly telling you, hey, this is what you need to do, or hey, I think this would be the better thing for you. Sometimes that influence is just being around certain conversations long enough that something you open openly thought about or something you openly questioned starts to feel normal, like it just starts to feel like there's not an issue, there's not a problem, it just fits right into your little groove, and sometimes it's constantly hearing somebody's perspective or somebody's opinion until you stop asking what you actually believe because you start to pay more attention to what they said and you start to feed on that, and it could also be having a friend who validates every single decision you make. We all know that friend that is down for whatever, you never gonna catch them saying no, they down for the cause, okay? And that's even when you know deep down you need somebody to say, wait, let's think about this, let's let's come back to let's have a group meeting real quick. Let's let's not pop the bottles and shake the tail feathers yet. Let's wait a minute. And listen, validation feels good, it feels great, even never gonna say no to it, but it's not nearly as cute. It's not nearly as what's that thing everybody was saying, it's not very demure, it's not very cutesy, no, not nearly as much. But if I'm being serious about growing with God, I can only surround not only, but I can't surround myself only around people who make me feel comfortable. I feel like as any part of growth goes, you're gonna have to get a little uncomfortable, and I feel like we always look so inward about that. We always look to ourselves that oh, it's gonna just be uncomfortable for me because of what I'm doing. No, it could be uncomfortable because of the people you're hanging around, it could be uncomfortable because of the crowd you're in, the places you go, things like that. It's not always just gonna be the people or just you. I feel like we have to be open-minded enough to say, hey, this is gonna make me uncomfortable being surrounded by these things or these people or these influences, and I feel like everybody should have a little wisdom around them. You should have a little smart little person on your shoulder, just like the two little devils that they always talk about. You need to have a little wisdom on your side, a little reason, you know. And scripture has something very specific, specific, Lord. I cannot talk to say about that, and that's where we're gonna open our word. We're gonna go straight to Proverbs chapter 13, verse 20. Again, that is Proverbs chapter 13, verse 20, and this is in the AMP Bible, or not Bible, the version. I personally like to read AMP because it kind of breaks down the scripture and gives more context, I feel like. But if you need something a little bit more modern, a little more aesthetically pleasing for your ears or your eyes, you can also read the NIV, NASB is also good, and then I think there's a C A S B as well. I would recommend those three. But Proverbs chapter 13, verse 20 says, He who walks as a companion with wise men will be wise, but the companions of conceited or dull-witted fools are fools themselves and will experience harm. Now, this verse is actually giving us two different outcomes. One is the walk with wise people, and you will become wise, and then keep in close company with foolishness, and eventually you'll experience the consequences of it. Simple, black and white, yin and yang. One, two. They're pretty actually direct, but I want to understand what the Bible means by wise because biblically, wisdom is more than just being smart, it's more than being just very intelligent. Excuse me. Because you can be educated and still make terrible decisions. Anybody who got their high school diploma knows that, yes, you graduated high school, but you know, you might have done that thing last week or last year. That wasn't the brightest thing in the world to do, but hey, you live on. You can be successful and still lack discernment. Literally, I feel like that's how a lot of entrepreneurs are made, and successful businesses are made. You you have the the skill, the idea, or whatever, but maybe your discernment isn't there yet, and maybe you don't make all the best decisions about which avenue to take, but you just have to live and learn, and you can give amazing advice to everybody else and somehow ignore all of it when it comes to your own life. This is a moment of silence because I think this is this is about you. Me too, me too. Don't take it personal, sis. Don't take it personal. We've all had our moments, but what does wise mean in this context? Throughout Proverbs, wisdom is actually connected to knowing God and allowing that knowledge to shape how you actually live. So wisdom is not just I know better. Wisdom is because I know better, I'm learning to move differently, and that's an important distinction that we have to account for and remember and look at the language of the verse. It's saying, walk with the wise. That right there is something talking about consistent proximity. The people we're regularly walking with through life can affect us. Their attitudes, their priorities, their habits, their perspective, the way they talk about relationships, the way they handle conflict, the way they respond when life doesn't go their way. Eventually, some of that stuff is gonna rub off, it's gonna get comfortable with you, and before you know it, you pick it up. Just like something you're watching in your phone, just like something you're listening to on TikTok or something like that, that influence it, it could be so small, but even like there was a I don't even know where it came from, but there was a sound on social media called like Quiet on the Creek, and it came from a saying that you know somebody just said casually during a live, but it became influential among the algorithm and the people, and it just everybody was eating that up, and just like simply as that that's how quickly influence can be just passed on and passed around to millions of people that don't even know each other, but just off your phone. Think of it like that, in the context of some of that stuff just rubbing off, which brings us to our next scripture, which is 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 33. Again, that is 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 33, and it says, Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals. Now, Paul quotes this one verse um maxim from the writings of the Greek dramatist. I hope I said that right, Menander. Bad company in this specific case undoubtedly refers to the teachers who were denying the truth of the resurrection. Now, Paul is also giving us a warning about the effect company can have on our character, but context does matter. Let's let's let's dial the back because it does matter. Paul isn't randomly giving friendship advice in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. He's addressing people who were spreading wrong beliefs about the resurrection. So this was about more than hanging around somebody who makes questionable decisions. Paul was warning the Corinthians that the ideas they repeatedly allowed around them could eventually affect what they believed and how they lived. And I think that's extremely relevant right now. You see it every day because influence doesn't only come from people sitting at our table anymore. Not just the people you know, the people you're closer to, the people you're around, it's also coming through our phones, like I had just mentioned. It's coming from podcasts, it's coming from TikTok, it's coming from Instagram, it's coming from YouTube. People we've never met can have access to our minds every single day. So when we're talking about the company you keep, I think we have to broaden that conversation out a little bit. Who are you listening to? Whose opinions have become important to you, and what voices are repeatedly shaping the way you see God, yourself, your relationships, your money, your success, and your future. Because proximity isn't only physical, it's literally not in 2026. No man, it's not just physical, and that's gonna take me to my first point. Everybody you love does not need equal access. Keyword equal. This is something that I personally have had to learn. Love and access are not the same thing. You can care about somebody deeply without consulting them about every major decision, you can enjoy somebody without allowing their opinion to determine your direction, and you can have history because Lord knows we all have history with that one person that you can have history with that person or that somebody without giving them permanent access to every single version of you. That's not being fake, that's not being rude, that's not being shady, that's just discernment. So, anybody who's coming at you sideways, honey, you just got your discernment in line in check, and they may not yet, but just think about your own life, just take a second, think about your own life. There are probably certain people you call when you want encouragement, and you might call someone else you when you want practical advice, just simple stuff, and hopefully, there's somebody you can call when you need the truth, not the version that protects your feelings, but the actual truth because different relationships can have different levels of access, and that's okay. The mistake is assuming that because someone has been around for a long time that they automatically deserve influence over where you're going next. History has literally told me how long you've known me. That's it, that's all that tells me. It gives me a timeline, a start date. That's it. It doesn't automatically tell me whether your advice is wise or whether it does me any good or it means well for me, and that's something that you have to keep in the back of your mind. That's something that you have to just always think about, like, okay, yeah, I know you 10 years, but I don't know about all that. You gotta have that discernment, you gotta just take that moment to just say, like, let me think about this first before I go to this person, and I don't want you to ever feel bad about that. But on to point two, pay attention to who, key word who you're becoming around people, instead of immediately saying or asking, is this person a bad friend? I think there's another question that is worth asking. The question really should be: who do I become when I'm around them? Do I like that version of myself? Do I become more honest? More grounded, more thoughtful? Do I feel comfortable talking about God? Can we disagree without becoming disrespectful? Can they celebrate something good happening for me without it turning into a comparison? Can I admit when I'm wrong? Can they? And here's honestly the most uncomfortable part. Sometimes the other person isn't doing anything obviously wrong. You may simply realize that the relationship consistently pulls you toward a version of yourself you're trying to grow out of. And that doesn't automatically mean that you have to end the friendship or cut ties, it might just mean that you need a boundary, it might mean that the relationship needs a different level of access, it might mean you stop asking that person for advice where their values don't align with yours. And sometimes, yes, it may mean accepting that a relationship has changed, but that's something to approach with prayer and with wisdom, not an impulsive text called social media post or unfollow because somebody irritated you on a Tuesday. But let's get back to our scripture real quick. It says that we need to walk with the wise and become wise. Paul warns us that company can affect character. Now, put those two things together, and there's a pretty clear principle: the voices closest to you do matter. Not because you need perfect friends, because they don't exist. Tell you that right now, and respectfully, neither are we. But we should pay attention to the relationship that we have because it has meaningful influence over us. That's where Proverbs 20 2717. Sorry, the scripture behind this entire verse starts making even more sense. Iron sharpens iron. Now, sharpening isn't one person standing over another saying, I'm better than you, let me fix you. Both pieces of iron are actually involved, both experience friction, both are affected. That's the kind of relationship I want us to think about throughout this whole series. Keep that in the back of your mind. Not who needs to change who so they can be worthy of being my friend. But are we helping each other become better? That's a very different conversation, and that's something you have to be open-minded enough to think about. Now, inspired by today's episode, there is something that I want you to practice. Now, you don't need to go through your contacts. I hope you've been listening. I'm not telling you to do that. You don't have to go through your contacts tonight and decide who gets demoted, who gets pushed to the curb, who you about to block, who you gonna post something shady about, girl. Get off them apps right now. Do not do that. Instead, just pay attention real quick. Notice who you call when you're confused. Notice whose approval you look for. And notice who you feel like when you have to become smaller around certain people, and then notice who can challenge you without disrespecting you, and you don't feel no type of way about it. And also pay attention to the people who consistently point you back towards wisdom, even when it's not necessarily what you wanted to hear. That all of that is information, and that is what you can take to God before you. Decide to do anything with that. Now, before we leave this episode, here's what I want you to remember everybody doesn't need to be removed from your life just because everybody doesn't belong in your inner circle. Yeah, there's a difference. Some people can be loved from a different level of access. Some friendships need boundaries, some need an honest conversation, and some are still worth fighting for. Some may have genuinely reached the end of their season. And wisdom is basically just learning that difference between all of those different distinctions. And while you're asking God to send you good people and send you good friends, don't forget to ask him to make you good company too. Because you do matter. You are literally half of the equation of these friendships. Because eventually, we're gonna turn this whole curve uh sorry, I can't talk. We're gonna turn this whole conversation around. Yeah, yeah, we're turning it around. So get ready. Because we can't spend this entire series inspecting everybody else's friendship skills and conveniently leave ourselves out of it. So yeah, we're going there. So I don't wanna hear it. I don't wanna hear it. Go come on right on back. Now, next time we're gonna talk about something that sounds good until you actually are on the receiving end of it, and that is my favorite little word, accountability. Because everybody says they want honest friends until the friend is honest, and that is where we're gonna introduce episode two. Don't just tell me what I want to hear. We're gonna get into Proverbs 27 and talk about correction, accountability, defensiveness, and how to tell the difference between somebody judging you and somebody who genuinely loves you enough to challenge you. I'll meet y'all back here. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_04 24:19

Hey, I'm just so happy I'll save. God, send me out the rain. Now I got peace, and now I got brains. Face. Right in his image I made. So it's you, I finna remain. I see that the proof, it's helping me think, God. When they didn't think I had to do it. God, I knew it was movin'. Earth, you wanted me rollin'. I knew it was amazing. God I'm giving you praises. We have the whole world singin'. I'ma keep praising your name. I don't care what these people gon' do, what these people gon' say, what these people gon' bang. We out here making the stifles. We in the world where we can't be the same. Okay. So I went for my hand on the Bible, speaking the truth, and we making it plain. We finna pop it, lock it, sock it, lock it, walkin' with blood, and we not finna change. Healing your word and I can't be afraid. Did it we crazy? We makin' it change. We did it, we did it, we own it, we got it. Fake like a seed, I just need me a grain. He back on the scene and he healin' the claim. Father, I love how you makin it seem. When they done it think I do it. I nigga was moving. Earth, you wanted me rollin'. I know you niggas amazing. Now I'm giving you crazy. We gotta do the same. With the make it go up with the I'ma keep making it same. Like, I'ma go right with the king. I'm not chasing a thing. You don't want to bring me a dream. Look how we pick on the phone. Hey, you play the training we own. It bit to use it for everything.