I Thought Mom Said That?

I Thought Mom Said That!?
“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: But a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭13‬:‭20‬

How many of you had a mom that would say something like, “If you keep hanging around that dumb kid and you’re going to get yourself into trouble!”? Or maybe it was something like, “You are going to be just the people you hang around!”. When mom said these kind of things it probably didn’t make a lot of sense or really resonate in your life then, but boy when a little time would pass and sure enough bad things started happening or bad attitudes started forming.

I had a friend when I was about 8 named Jesse. Jesse’s parents didn’t go to church like my dad did. The rules at his house were barely existent. Jesse seemed to always talk me into doing some stupid things. We were the Dukes of Hazard generation and let me tell you, we loved being Bo & Luke Duke. If you ever watched the show, these two always seemed to find trouble, no matter how good they tried to be. Jesse and I loved that show. We dressed our bikes up best we could like the General Lee and we jumped anything that looked like a ramp. One day we were looking for “ramp” materials in the alley behind our houses and there was a particular dumpster that had some stuff that looked like it would be fun to burn...did I mention Jesse was a pyro? He loved setting stuff on fire. It usually was something small, but today Jesse thought it would be neat to see if we could burn some stuff and throw it in the dumpster. He would set things on fire and I would put them out. Well he found a real dry piece of wood and sure enough it caught fire quite well. I then tried to wave it frantically in the air, because as we all know oxygen puts fires out...man are kids dumb! Jesse opened the lid on the dumpster and said, “Larry, throw it in here!”, so I did. Well it took about 5 seconds for that dumpster to just ignite. Jesse’s General Lee was back at his house, but mine was right there...a man who must have been on the other side of his garage where the trash dumpster was came around the corner and yelled, “what are you two doing?” as the fire raged. I jumped on my bike and took off, I left Jesse behind, or so I thought...Jesse, who wasn’t a slender child, passed me as I was peddling as hard as I could! I had never seen him run like that before!

Mom had told be a few times Jesse was trouble and I wish I could say that I stayed away from him after that...but it took a few more lessons.  You might have a friend right now that you feel like you have to be around and all the while you have no idea the trouble that lies down the road. God does. He has designed a place where you can find good friends and learn  how better to walk with Him. It’s called Church. And while you try to find a friend to help you be wise, be the friend to someone else. Mom sure seemed smart, but it must have been because Jesus was her friend.
Pastor Larry Hof

Here is a Song for today!
https://youtu.be/37wV6D49iEY