I spent a part of my childhood years living in Fayetteville, NC. Fayetteville is in the sandhills. One of the most dreaded things as a child living in the sandhills were sandspurs. Sandspurs are the spiny seed pods of a grassy weed. The sandspur was a painful reminder that you needed to wear shoes when you walked through the grass in the summer. But you did not have to be barefooted to feel their pain. The sandspurs would stick to your socks, pant legs, shoestrings, and anything it could attach itself. Then you had to pick them off and most of the time those spiny protrusions went into your finger. Ouch!

Sandspurs are not the only thing that can stick to you. The character, behavior, and morals of people we surround ourselves with can stick to us. Paul says in  1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”  The reason is that it is much easier for people to pull you down to bad behavior then it is to lift them up to good. We need to be very careful of who we have as our closest friends. Proverbs 13:20 says “He that walks with the wise will be wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm”.

This does not mean that we cannot be friendly with everyone, we need to build relationships with people in order to be a witness. But we need to make sure our closest friends will help us grow in the Lord rather than away from him. Choose your friends wisely, so that the right things stick to you.