Dear Possible Loneliness,

I know the last letter was probably a little discouraging. The idea of having to leave your friends behind to follow God is a little frightening, especially because you don’t want to end up alone and considered weird or different than others.

There is hope. If we are making the conscious decision to recklessly abandon (completely surrender) your lives to God, then he will never leave you or keep you without friends. There are good friends in the world that want to encourage you in our spiritual walk and help influence you for God rather than the ways of the world.

You need to find someone, a friend, that challenges you to grow in your faith through example and counsel. Someone that knows and understands 1 Corinthians 15:33 – 34, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.” They need to be someone that has the same goals as you, seeking to serve God and grow in their faith.

The reason you need to find godly friends is because you don’t want to be distracted from the things of God. You want someone that is going to cheer you on as you take steps closer to God and also someone that will question/confront you when you are straying from the path God designed for you.

Heb.10:24 – And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:

Now this doesn’t mean reject those old friends or push them completely away. You can still be friends, but you must take care of how they influence you. Be kind, caring, and still include them in activities, but get your spiritual influence elsewhere. And you never know, you may be the example or good influence they need to get their lives back on track with God.

“You mirror those who influence you.” – Jackie Kendall. So let’s have good influences in our lives. If you pray, God will bring them to you and you will not have to fear being lonely. You may even get so many new and wonderful friends that you won’t know what to do with them all. You never know.

                                                                                     Signing off,
                                                                                     Tami