Chapter 2
Lest you forget and think that I am just some old guy blowing smoke who has a beef with teenagers, let me remind you that I was once where you are now, and it really wasn’t all that long ago. I faced the same temptations, I felt the same emotions, and I know the joy and heartache of being a teen. In other words, I’ve walked in your shoes. Sure, times have changed a little bit, but the basics will always stay the same. The devil still uses the same tactics to try to get you to fall.
I’m a runner. I’ve done lots of smaller races, but as of right now my real “claim to fame” is that I’ve run four marathons (that’s 26.2 miles each, for those of you who think a marathon is any time you step out the door with your running shoes on). A marathon, for most people, is only for the accomplishment. They do not go out with the intent of winning the whole race; they go out with an aspiration to finish. It’s sort of like climbing a mountain. Those who set out to do it are not trying to set records or be the first to the top. They just want to get there, and that’s how most people view a marathon.
It’s not an easy task. You cannot expect to still be standing on two legs at the end of the marathon if you sprint the first couple of miles. I would consider myself to be pretty fast (please hold the applause until the end of the story), and although I’ve never won a race, I’ve come pretty close. But what happens so often in a race, not even just a marathon, is that all the runners who are my speed and faster are right up at the front of the pack where I like to be at the starting line.
When that gun goes off the adrenaline is plowing through my veins like a muscle car and I’m anxious to see if I can accomplish the goals I have set for myself. What inevitably happens is I start trying to keep up with all the runners around me. On a short race, my average pace is right around six minutes per mile. There is nothing so disheartening as when I cross the first mile marker and the time says 5:30. The first thought that goes through my head is, “Great. Now I’ve done it.” And it never fails; that the next mile is always the slowest in the race. Usually by the time I get to the end I have settled into my pace, but the entire race is affected by how I started.
This life is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. How we start affects how well we finish, and if your eyes are on those around you instead of on the goal, then you will be hindered. That’s what peer pressure is. That is what caused me to get off my pace. It was probably more subconscious than an actual decision I made, but it still hurt me in the end. I became more concerned with what the other runners thought about how fast I was running than I did about keeping the pace that I knew was right for me. And the kicker is they don’t know me from Adam and don’t care to know me, and I don’t have a clue who they are, and don’t really care to know them either.
Peer pressure is an amazing thing. It makes young men do things that they would never do if they were alone. I’ve noticed that with a lot of the guys that I deal with on a daily basis. When I am with them one on one, they are the greatest guys in the world and seem like they have no faults. They give the impression of being very genuine. But you put that same guy with a couple of other guys who are not really headed in the right direction, and he has to act cool around them and do foolish things. It is because of the peer pressure.
Biblical Example
There is a story in 2 Samuel 13 that illustrates the power of peer pressure very well. I’m sure you are familiar with who King David was. He was probably the most well-known king of all time, but certainly the most well-known king in Israel. What you may not know is that David, contrary to the Bible’s command in Deuteronomy, had several wives. Of course, that led to David having many children. David had a son named Absalom, who later tried to take the throne from his father, and he had a son named Amnon. They were both from different mothers, making them half-brothers.
Absalom had a sister named Tamar that the Bible says was fair, which meant she was beautiful. Amnon, who was the half-sister to Tamar, loved her. In fact, he loved her so much that he actually became sick for love. He wouldn’t eat and he lost a lot of weight because of his love for Tamar. But Amnon had been trained in his father’s house and, he had been taught a sense of right and wrong. He knew that Tamar, being a virgin, was off-limits. The Bible says, “…and Amnon thought it hard for him to do any thing to her.” Though he “loved” her, he was willing to suffer the hunger and the “sickness” because he knew what was right.
It would be great if the story had ended there, or had ended with a beautiful romance developing between Amnon and Tamar that ended in a beautiful palatial wedding with thousands of guests and well-wishers. But it doesn’t. To quote the Bible again, it says, “But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab.”
Jonadab noticed that Amnon was losing weight and that he just wasn’t himself so he asked Amnon what the problem was. Amnon told him that he loved Tamar so Jonadab devised a plan that would get Amnon what he wanted. To make a long story short, Amnon forced his half-sister into an act of fornication that he probably would never have committed were it not for his “friend” Jonadab.
Here is the saddest part of it all. Amnon was the one who had to live with the consequences of his sin, not Jonadab. Absalom murdered Amnon in the long-term. In the short term, the Bible says, “And Amnon hated [Tamar] exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her.” Tamar tried to reason with Amnon, but he had her pushed out of his house and the door bolted behind her. He had been influenced to a great evil by a young man whom he thought was his friend.
The sad thing about peer pressure is that it very rarely ever works in a positive way. Why is it that people are always influenced to do the wrong things? You know the proverbial “apple in the barrel” analogy. If you put a bad apple in with all the other good apples, the good apples will not make the bad apple good; the bad apple always turns the good apples bad.
Just go down to the fish market and look into the crab barrel. They never have to put a lid on it because as soon as one crab begins to crawl out, they others will grab onto him and pull him back down.[i]
What I am going to propose may be a radical solution, but I don’t see why it cannot be. Why should it be that the majority of Christian young men are worldly and have no care for the things of God? Why does it have to be that the one who is out of place is the young man who is trying to please God with his life? I think it can be and should be flipped. The one who is worldly and ungodly should be the one in the minority. He should be the one that feels out of place at church and in the youth group, not the other way around. But young men have become so accustomed to the thinking that spirituality is “uncool” and weird that no one wants to stand up for what is right anymore, and the devil is more than pleased that Christianity is portrayed in such a way.
You Are Who Your Friends Are
If a third grader was watching you and thought you were weird, you wouldn’t care one bit what he thought. In fact, you may give him a “wet willy” and send him packing. He is not your peer; he is not your equal. On the other hand, if you were doing the same thing around your friends and they looked at you like you were a nut-job, you would probably stop immediately and walk away red-faced. Who your friends are has a big impact on what you do and who you are. You may have heard the quote, “You are or very soon will be what you read and who your friends are.” It is because they have such an impact on your life.
Most young men are so unflappable and cool that they would never admit the influence of their friends over them. But no matter how hard they try to deny the facts, they just will not go away. Which means this for you: it is absolutely imperative that you surround yourself with those who will influence you toward godliness. If you let that thought get ahold of you, it could cause sweeping change in your life. If you really desire to please God with your life, and if you really want to make a spiritual impact on this world, then this change is crucial.
This goes back to what I said in the first chapter. If you are surrounded by those who do not have much of a desire to please God, then this could very well mean that you will have very few friends. It could mean that your “friends” will leave you high-and-dry. You have to decide what is more important, being liked by friends who have no passion to please God, or being “liked” by the God who sees your every action, and trying to please Him.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret. If you leave friends that are holding you back, and you stop hanging around those that can sway you in the wrong direction, they will probably make fun of your newfound “holier-than-thou” attitude. It will not be easy at first because you will make them look bad. But when they go home at night, and they are alone, they will respect you for your decision. They will probably never admit it to you, but they will wish they had the courage to do what you’ve done. And here’s a bonus secret, your example may even influence them to change their ways.
The Second Step
Separating from worldly friends is the first step, but that is all it is. If you want to paint a masterpiece, you have to go out and buy the canvas and the paints, but a masterpiece will not just magically appear. You have to use the materials and start painting. God wants to paint a masterpiece with your life, not just after you become a man, but as you move into manhood. In other words, right now. But if you only take the first step, you will obviously not get very far in the right direction. If a baby is learning to walk on his own, he is eventually going to have to take more than one step. Yes, he will be wobbly at first, and you might be, too, but as he grows and practices, it becomes easier and easier until eventually every step is second nature. I guarantee that when you stand up you don’t think, “Okay, now how did I do that last time? Oh, that’s right, get my balance, and put one foot in front of the other.” No, you just jumped out of your chair, and, knowing young men, probably took off running. You don’t even think about it anymore because it is second nature.
If the first step is to separate from the wrong influences, then the second step is to surround yourself with the right influences. With “practice” and dedication to God, a life of holiness and a walk with God becomes second nature. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
It’s just like the crabs in the barrel at the fish market. If any one of those crabs really has a desire to get out of the barrel that ultimately leads to his being picked for the boiling pot, he has got to make a drastic change. If he doesn’t, he will be just like crabs before him who have tried to separate from all the others in danger of becoming food. No matter how bad he wants to get out, he will always be pulled back in. Of course, it would have been best if that crab would not have been hanging out with the ones who got caught in the first place, but that’s a different discussion.
They say (I don’t know who “they” are – I suppose it’s the researchers, but I’ll give them the credit for this fact) that if you do something twenty-one times, it becomes a habit. You have walked well over twenty-one times. Maybe you have bitten your fingernails down to your knuckles well over twenty-one times. You may have brushed your teeth twenty-one times. Now I realize who I am talking to here so that may be a bit of a stretch, but we’ll just use our imaginations and act like that is a fact. Regardless, of what it is, you have many things in your life that are habits. Hanging out with the right friends and influences can become the same way. And the longer the habit goes, the harder it becomes to break.
I read an article recently about some pelicans in Monterey, California. Now, I have never really been a huge fan of pelicans. I’ve never been out “pelican watching” or anything like that. I don’t stare at pictures of pelicans and think, “My, what a beautiful bird.” Because the fact is, pelicans are ugly. Their beaks are a whole lot bigger than their heads and they just don’t demand admiration like an eagle in flight or something like that. In fact, I’ve always wondered what the human equivalent of a pelican would look like. I don’t know if you ever sit and think about what animal you or your friends or family would be if there was a look-alike contest and you were changed into whatever you looked the most like, but I do. It’s a funny thought. Some people resemble monkeys or bloodhounds or beavers or whatever. Maybe I’m just weird. I don’t think I would want to be the one who was equated with the pelican, though, because they are just plain ugly.
If pelicans do have anything going for them, though, it is that they are great at fishing. What happened in California is that a fleet of fishing boats would pull up in the harbor and begin to clean their catch right on the spot. They kept the good meat, but threw all of the leftovers overboard. The pelicans got smart and started hanging out near these boats. Every day around the same time, the fishing boats would come, and the pelicans would get fed.
It all worked out great for the pelicans until the fishermen realized they could sell the waste and make a little money off of it. Unfortunately for the pelicans, this meant no more free meals. They sat there day after day getting thinner and thinner waiting for the food that never came. Wildlife officials came to investigate the problem, and concluded that the pelicans had forgotten how to fish. To take care of the problem they brought in pelicans from other areas to join the flock and teach these starving pelicans how to fish again.[ii]
You may have started off as a child with a desire to do what is right and your parents may have instilled in you the need for godly living. But as you grew older, you began to hang out with the wrong friends, and spirituality took a back seat to the foolish things your friends helped influence you to do. After you have taken the first step away from the ungodly influence, you need to learn how to be godly again, and the way that is accomplished is by hanging out with those who are godly. Instead of resembling everything ugly about the world, learn to resemble the beauty of godliness.
Maybe you didn’t grow up with godly influences in your life and this is all new to you. The way that you learn godliness is by hanging around those who are godly.
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