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Join us this Sunday, Sept. 13th for a chance to connect with us and other college Freshman! FREE dinner will be provided from Tally Mac Shack. We’d also love for you to join us for our 8pm service by RSVPing HERE!

DAY 1

“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” King Solomon, Proverbs 13:20

“Show me your friends and I would tell you who you are.”  -Vanilla Ice

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done? 

What’s your greatest accomplishment? 

What’s your biggest regret in life?

Take a second and think. Answer each individual question.

Whether you realize it or not, the answers to all three of those questions share a common thread; they involve other people. The craziest thing you’ve ever done is rarely done alone. Your greatest accomplishment is often the culmination of years of hard work that’s guided by parents, coaches, friends and mentors. Unfortunately, many of our greatest mistakes and regrets were with someone telling us, “It’s not that big of a deal” or, “Nobody will know.”  

Our goal in writing this devotional is to help you avoid hitting a landmine in your faith in your first 15 days of college and set you up for success in following Jesus. So, why would we start a personal faith journey talking about other people? It’s actually very simple. The single greatest determiner of successfully pursuing Jesus in college is who you surround yourself with or as we call it, the principle of social influence. 

King Solomon was the wisest man on the planet. In fact, history tells us that foreign kings and leaders would travel from all over just to hear him and learn from his wisdom. In the book of Proverbs, Solomon documents extraordinary truths and in chapter 13 he captures the essence of this principle, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” 

In other words, you are becoming the people you walk through life with. Does surrounding yourself with good and wise people foolproof your life from bad decisions? Absolutely not, but it will absolutely bring up your batting average. The next four years will be the most influential and formative years of your life. Many of you will discover who you are, what you want to do, and where you want to live. The people you are around will influence these decisions. They will help create habits, good or bad, that will follow you for the rest of your life.  

At the risk of being overly repetitive… Make no mistake--the friendships and relationships you choose now will determine the direction and quality of your life. 

Over the next four days we’re going to unpack this idea and learn how to leverage the extraordinary power of social influence, but for today I simply want to leave you with these questions for reflection:  

1) Who do you want to be?  

2) How do you want people to describe you?

3) Do you tend to surround yourself with good or bad influences?