WHO ARE YOU GOING WITH?

There is a saying among my people (the Yorubas of South West Nigeria) that “show me your friend, and I will know who you are”.

Friend in this regard refers to the people you walk, talk, spend time with, put your life in their hands, and who share your hope and aspiration. In short, your friends are the people who go with you in the long haul. The emphasis on your friend by my people stem from their understanding that the person(s) you spend time with determines so many things in your life. It determines how you are perceived, what you would do, how far you would go in life and so on.

A look at the scripture, the lives of three out of the many characters, also confirms the above saying.

Firstly, we look at the life of Ruth, (in Ruth 1:4-18) she got to a critical point in her life and had to make a choice on who she was going to go with, she chose to stick with Naomi, and her life changed. It changed so much so that as a Moabite, she came to have an inheritance among God’s people and much more that she became King David’s great-grand mother and an ancestor to our Lord and Savior, Jesus. (Matt 1:5)

Similar to the above is Rahab (a Harlot). When the Isrealites were in the wilderness and spies were sent to Jericho, she helped the spies. Of note is that, she is not the only one whose house is by the wall of the city, but she is the only one that gave a helping hand when these men were in distress (Joshua 2:4-18), and of course only her and her family escaped from Jericho alive (Joshua 6:22-23). Furthermore, she also made it to the lineage of our savior (Matt 1:5).

One of the most tragic stories in the scripture is that of Jonathan, the son of King Saul. He had an opportunity like the two women above to choose who to go with but took a different route and had his life cut short. (1 Sam. 20) Though, he knew what was going to happen in the future (like Rahab knew), and his father had already attempted killing him, but instead of going off with David, he stayed with his father and they perished together. (1 Sam 31:2)

Daily in our lives, we choose who we walk with the same way the above characters did, and from the above, we see that our lives can progress towards God and His best for our lives (like Rahab and Ruth) or it can go downhill as shown in the life of Jonathan.

The big question again is “WHO ARE YOU GOING WITH?”.