Resisting Peer Pressure

 Most people find it very easy to go with the flow of what everyone else is doing. It is the path of least resistance. They don't have to think deeply about things, either. They just let others do their thinking for them. It might be the easy way, but going with the flow leads us in the wrong direction most of the time, because most people don't listen to the Lord, so they go the wrong way. 

Caleb was one of the 12 spies who went to spy out the land of Canaan before their crossing of the Jordan River to take over the land. Unfortunately, he and Joshua were the only ones who returned believing that God would give them the land. (Joshua 14:8) After 40 years in the wilderness, Caleb told the leaders that he wholly followed the Lord, even though his brothers who had gone up with him caused the hearts of the people to melt, so they did not follow the Lord. He resisted the peer pressure and did the right thing, instead.

I wonder how many times we miss the will of God because of our peers, the people around us? Our faith in God should be from a personal relationship with Jesus. It should not be something that we believe or do, just because of our family or others. If the faith of the people around us causes our faith to fail, we did not really have solid faith in the Lord anyway. Real faith will continue to trust the Lord even if everyone around us decides not to believe Him.

We need to remember what Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount. He warned us that wide is the way that leads to destruction, and many people are on that road. However, narrow is the way that leads to life eternal, and only a few people find that way. If we take His wisdom, we know that following the crowd will lead us to destruction. Therefore, we need to be like Caleb and wholly follow the Lord, no matter how much peer pressure we have to go another way.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Joshua 15-17.