Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, a well-known leader in the personal and professional development industry, famously said, “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read." Most of the time, you choose who those people are, but sometimes God chooses for you.
How to know that God is changing your social circle:
- You start feeling uncomfortable around your current circle.
- This discomfort can take many forms, but often it shows up as a sense that you no longer belong. Things may irritate you that didn’t bother you before, for example.
- Conflict increases between you and your circle, often seemingly out of nowhere.
- This is different from the normal conflict that occurs in every relationship. Don’t let an aversion to conflict convince you that a relationship is over.
- Your support system begins criticizing you, claiming that “you’ve changed.”
- You meet new people who you connect with easily, and who have a positive impact on you.
- This often happens when God wants to increase your responsibility.
- You are “reintroduced” to people you already knew, but now you see them in a different light or get to know them on a deeper level.
What to do once you realize God is changing your social circle:
- Identify what God is saying through these changes.
- For example, I struggle with confrontation, so God has been pushing me to take an active role in ending certain relationships lately, instead of just passively pulling away.
- Make sure that God is pushing the change and not the enemy.
- Accept that you may not completely understand why God is changing certain things until later, if at all.
- Acknowledge how the changes make you feel.
- Embrace the changes and believe that God’s plans are best (Jeremiah 29:11).
What not to do:
- Fight the change by either holding onto the old or rejecting the new.
- Isolate yourself from people in general.
- Cut off people when God didn’t tell you to.
Key Point: There’s a difference between following God and acting out of your own bitterness, unforgiveness, or immaturity. If your social circle changes every year, you are the problem.
Action Step: Get out a sheet of paper and divide it into 3 columns. In the first column, list the top 5-10 people in your life right now. In the second column, write a few words that describe the positive traits each of these people brings to your life. In the third column, write the positive things that you contribute to their lives. How do Columns 2 and 3 compare? Do they feel balanced? Are you happy with who is on your list? If not, what are some changes you could make today to improve things?