Bad Connections

Read

Proverbs 13:20 "Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm."

Think

I bought Lisa a car from a dealership a while back, a pre-owned vehicle that caught my eye. But before I signed anything, I asked the salesman a question: “Give me a list of everything this car has ever gone through.” He came back with about six pages of detailed maintenance records. Every warning light, every issue, every fix, all documented from the day the car rolled off the lot.

I started going through the list. “How about this one? That kind of scares me.” He said, “We took care of it.” “How about that rattle?” “Took care of it.” Everything had been addressed. Consistent care from a trusted source. I looked at those six pages and said, “I’ll buy it.”

Now here is the connection I want you to see. What if you could pull a six-page maintenance history on every person in your inner circle? What would the record show? Would it reveal consistent care, faithful attention to problems, steady growth over time? Or would it reveal a trail of unresolved issues, abandoned friendships, and patterns that never got dealt with?

Solomon puts it as simply as it can be said: “Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.” This proverb is not giving you a suggestion. It is stating a law. The people you walk with will shape the person you become. You do not stay neutral. You either move toward wisdom or you drift toward harm based on the company you keep.

I have seen this play out in a painful way more than once. A close friend came to me years ago and asked me to officiate a wedding. The couple had only known each other for a few months, but they were in love and wanted to get married fast. I should not have agreed to do it. When I stood up at the ceremony, I had this uneasy feeling in my stomach. And then I looked at the wedding party. The best man? A guy the groom had known for about twelve weeks. That is it. Twelve weeks. No long-term friendships anywhere in sight. Every relationship in his life was brand new.

That was a massive warning sign, and I knew it in the moment. When someone cannot point to consistent, long-term friendships, when every person in their life is someone they met recently, that tells you something. It tells you that either they do not know how to sustain relationships, or the people who knew them longest chose to walk away. Either way, it is a pattern you need to pay attention to.

You can know someone really well just by knowing their friends. And people can know you really well just by knowing yours. That is not a comfortable thought for some of us. Your friends are a mirror. They reflect your values, your priorities, and your trajectory. If the people closest to you are pulling you away from the things of God, that is not a friendship issue. That is a direction issue. You are walking the wrong way with the wrong crowd.

Think about it this way. That pre-owned car I bought had six pages of history from one dealership. Consistent. Reliable. Tracked. That is what wise companionship looks like. It is people who have been with you through seasons, who have spoken truth to you, who have a history of faithfulness that you can point to and say, “This person has been there. They have walked with me. They have grown with me.”

The opposite is what Solomon calls being a companion of fools. And notice, he does not say you have to be a fool yourself to suffer harm. You just have to walk with them long enough. Proximity does the rest. Bad connections drain a good battery. You can be the most well-intentioned person in the room, but if your closest connections are pulling you toward compromise, you will eventually feel the drain.

So take a look at your six-page history. Who are the people walking with you right now? Are they people of wisdom? People who love God, love the church, and have a consistent track record? Or are all your closest relationships brand new, untested, and built on convenience rather than covenant? Because that pre-owned car was worth every penny, not because it was flashy, but because the records proved it had been cared for consistently by people who knew what they were doing. Your relationships should be able to say the same thing.

Apply

Check the records – Write down the names of the five people you spend the most time with. For each one, ask yourself: Is this person walking toward wisdom or drifting toward foolishness? If the list reveals a pattern, make one intentional change this week to invest in a wiser friendship.

Pray

Lord, thank you for the people you have placed in my life. I ask you to give me discernment about who I walk with. Show me where my connections are pulling me away from you instead of toward you. Give me the humility to seek out wise friends and the courage to step back from relationships that are draining the life out of me. I want to walk with the wise, God, because I want to become wise. In Jesus’ name. Amen.