This New Year our target is to make new company, company in high and low places, even new company within our known circles of influence, but profitable company that will give us morale to achieve our annual targets and most of all our life long purpose. By company I mean a team; a group of people who work together.
It’s said that your income will be the average of five of your closest company in five years’ time: for this reason, we start this year with adding, changing or adjusting our company, and of course eliminating some useless company like some of that we’re going to be looking at today.
Can someone that genuinely loves you be the bad company you don’t need as you pursue your purpose in life?
It’s a hard task to discover your true purpose in life. This purpose will sometimes come as a mere idea, dream, vision, assigned task from a superior, a deep desire – one of those things you like, an improvement of someone else’s idea, and many other ways, yet it’s even harder to start pursuing and fulfilling your purpose in life regardless of which way it comes to you or you get it.
As parents, it’s easy for us to identify bad and good company that we can permit our children to associate with if they have to live a meaningful life. Of course, living a meaningful life doesn’t mean you’re living your true purpose in life; we shall get more about that some other time. We sometimes go as far as chasing the young people we regard as bad company out of the lives and circles of our children; my mother was a champion at this and am forever grateful for her very much unwanted protection in my years of ignorance. I can’t tell how many times I was convinced she was against me when she fought everyone I regarded as a friend.
Bad company is easy to deal with, even in our adult life, because you always see the bad things they do. But, is there possibility of good people, loving people and genuinely caring people pausing as bad company in your life and failing you to pursue and achieve your desired purpose in life without any hidden or visible intentions of malice?
In Genesis 12:1-9, God tells Abram “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s home, and go to a land that I am going to show you…” Abram had greatly prospered in his motherland with good age, great wealth and slaves. Imagine how hard it must have been for him to convince his parents, relatives and other associates to bless his journey after he prepared to leave in obedience of the call of God, which was his pursuit for purpose in life.
Bad company can be people that cherish you genuinely, but only when they love you enough or too much not to let you dare to live to achieve your purpose in life. These people can be very protective and very caring that they will not let you do anything that they regard as risky, dangerous, mysterious or simply out of the ordinary. They’ll talk you out and talk you down, telling you all the possible challenges, just to discourage you in the name of not seeing you get hurt, disappointed or lost in things they’re convinced you don’t understand well.
David, suffered from this problem: his brothers could not comprehend the fact that he could challenge their fears (Goliath; 1 Samuel 17:26-31,33-37) and win victory for Israel in the name of the Lord. Even with genuine love for David, they thought talking him down and explaining how dangerous it’d be for him to challenge Goliath would deter him from daring the giant, yet truly they were prohibiting him from reaching his glorious destiny that would change his life forever (1 Samuel 17:41-58) - thank God he never listened, be like David!
Aspiring to do great things and actually doing them requires a measure of wisdom that can help you determine when to start, pause, resume and stop. Caution: be careful not to regard all wise counsel as an expression of bad attitude from people who love you that you might regard as bad company, not all caution from your company that deters you from doing what you want is actually bad company.
Think about this; how many people’s lives have been destroyed by the caution that is inspired by fears in the name of love and protectionism?
Whatever you do, follow your heart, find your purpose in life, take a risk, go forward, far and wide, and stay on the move until you can do something meaningful with your life! If ever you’re convinced to get out of your comfort zone which are the usual experiences and familiar environment to bring to life the purpose of your life, start when your heart tells you it’s convenient and enjoy the satisfaction of living your true purpose.
May the Lord take each step of your life with you and be the leader of your good company as you find more company to help you discover your path and purpose in life. I wish you a happy and prosperous new year.
