Living In the Presence of God

After a lively dinner, my husband and I shooed our kids upstairs, so we could spend our coveted fifteen or twenty minutes catching up with each other. We dimmed the lights, threw the accumulated junk from the day off the couch, turned on some love songs, and flipped the gas logs on for a romantic atmosphere. I began the discussion with my frustrations over how most of my plans for the day had been interrupted by phone calls, settling disputes between the kids, and a forgotten pile of laundry that sucked me into folding it. I admitted that I felt like I had gotten nothing accomplished. My loving husband comforted me and began sharing the details of his day. He shared his thoughts on a case that had caused him trouble over the last few weeks; he mentioned frustrating exchanges that he had with clients; then he shared with me an interesting article he had come across while reading the news. He said, “Evidently, obesity is contagious.” He fired up his computer and pulled up an article written in the New England Journal of Medicine by researchers who had studied 12,067 people for over 30 years. He skimmed down the article and read, “A person’s chances of becoming obese increased by 57% if he or she had a friend who became obese in a given interval.” He went on reading, “The closeness of friendship is relevant to the spread of obesity. Persons in closer, mutual friendships have more of an effect on each other than persons in other types of friendships, increasing the chance of obesity 171%.” As we continued to read through the article we noted that the researchers suggested that many other behaviors were influenced by close mutual friendships.

In some ways, the article revealed new, helpful insights that will provide healthcare workers with tools to give to their patients who struggle with obesity. However, this thirty year study of over 12,000 people simply stated an obvious truth: The people you hang around will affect your behavior. As I Corinthians 15:33 puts it, “Do not be deceived: Bad company corrupts good morals.” As I have been reading through the Bible this year, the plan I am following has taken me through the chapters in Genesis, where God tells his chosen people to avoid contact with the Gentile nations. In some cases God tells the Israelites to utterly destroy the heathen living around them. When the Israelites refuse to listen and marry Gentile women, they inevitably end up worshiping other gods, and incurring curses instead of blessings from God.

So, if bad company corrupts good morals, and I am trying to daily live in the presence of God, how should I respond? The same truth of immersing myself in God’s Word, praying continuously, and developing close friendships with others who desire a close relationship with the Lord is the key. This truth does not give me an excuse to avoid non-Christians, or to shelter my children from the world. Jesus put it best when he said,

This truth gives me an impetus to strengthen my relationship with my savior and continue to establish solid Christian friendships so that I can be used of God to reach a hurting world. As my kids have gotten older, I am sensing a prodding from the Lord to reach out to that hurting world with them. I don’t know how this will all play out, but I am praying that God would give us opportunities to share the truth of the gospel as we reach out in tangible ways to those in need.