followHIM - "Why is who I hang out with so important?" : follow HIM Favorites

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

Hank Smith and John Bytheway answer a question from this week's Come, Follow Me study.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/old-testament/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers/SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Rough Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Transcripts/Language Team/French TranscriptsAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-piano

Hello, everyone. Welcome to this week's Follow Him Favorites. If you've been following this year, you know that John and I take a single question from this week's lesson to use as our Follow Him Favorite. This week, we are in the book of Judges. The question this week is about Samson and how important it is to date well, to marry well, to surround yourself with good influences. Does it matter who my friends are and who I date and who I marry? How much does it matter? I think the story of Samson can answer that dramatically. Don't you, John? It's a tough one to talk to kids about taking a hard look and saying, do I need to change my friends? I love that word that you use, tank the influences. And you know,

the example I like to use with teenagers is driving because they're all very excited about getting the driver's license and stuff. If you're in somebody else's car, you're going where they're going. Are you an influencer or are you influenced? And President M. Russell Ballard said once, we must influence more than we are influenced. Really requires a bit of honesty to say, what are my friends doing to me? Are they taking me where I want? Are we all helping each other get where we want? If my friend's driving the car, it's okay because we both want to go to a good place or not. So it's a great question. Do I influence or am I influenced? Excellent. Yeah. There's only that I know of three people in scripture who had

their birth announced by an angel. Two of them are well-known, John the Baptist and Jesus. The third is Samson. It's Samson. And nobody could pick him out, right? When I asked, no one could pick him out. Why? What happens? I think Samson's major downfall comes early in his life when he says, I want to marry someone who is not of my faith. And his parents try to say, is there someone of our faith you could marry? And he decides, no, I'm not going to do that. And then things kind of just keep spiraling there with the people that because of this marriage, the people he's surrounded by bring about his downfall. So it does matter who you are surrounded by, who you date and who you marry. We would love to say, oh no, it doesn't matter. Life will be the same no matter what.

And by the way, when you do switch friends or switch, you know, when you decide to end a relationship, we're not saying those people are evil. You don't have to go through your friend group and go telestial, telestial, outer darkness, telestial. You don't have to do that. You can just say, look, this situation is not good for me. This circumstance, it just does not work. So I hope the Lord will take care of you. I hope good things for you, but I cannot stay here. Do you remember in the Book of Mormon, there's this point where King Noah can do the right thing. Do you remember this? King Noah can do the right thing and let Abinadi go. And he was about to do it. And he gets influenced. His priests, his friends, they push him to do the wrong thing.

How crucial it is, John, to surround yourself by people who are going to hold you up instead of trying to pull you down. It's a righteous desire. If you would like more influences, good influences in your life, pray for them. I just think it's a good thing to pray for. Heavenly Father, I need friends and I need friends who will strengthen what I believe or influence me in good ways. And I will try to influence them in good ways. And when I look at my own life and my children, it's one of the things I'm most grateful

for is when I see they've got good friends because they seem to go in good paths when they have good friends. So, we hope everybody listening, take this seriously. Again, you don't have to be judgmental. So often we make this about, well, you're judging my friends. You're judging my boyfriend. You're judging my girlfriend. That's not what this is about. This is you saying, what is the best situation for me in which I can live the gospel?

Didn't you say, John, you love what Elder Hales used to say about a friend? Yeah, Elder Robert D. Hales. So this is going back. He was actually, I love this because he was a fighter pilot, because I love airplanes. And the talk that he gave was called Return with Honor, because that was the motto for his squadron, I guess. But in that talk, he just gave the best definition of a friend I think I've ever heard. A friend is someone who makes it easier to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I think he went on, a friend will never ask you to choose between his way and God's way. It was some really great advice.

A friend makes it easier. Hank, you're a friend because you never ask me to do things that would take me in bad paths. So we're friends because you make it easier for me to live the gospel by being around you. And that's a great definition for friendship. Excellent. Absolutely excellent. So take a look. Everyone listening, take a serious look. John and I are going to do it too. We're going to take a serious look at the influences in our lives. How influencing are we? How influenced are we, and see if we need to make a change there because we don't want to end up on the road to tragedy like Samson does. It's a very sad story where if he just makes some changes early on, it could end up wonderfully.

So it can be a wonderful lesson for us. If we want to end up in good places, we got to make some good decisions early on. John, I had a good talk with one of my sons the other day, and I was getting a little bit nervous about some of the video games he was playing. Felt like they were getting a little edgy. He and I had a good chat about it. I kind of left it at that. And I got a text from him later. And he said, hey, dad, I think I'm going to delete all the scary and weird games.

They just don't bring a good feeling into my life. I'm going to start playing more cheerful games that bring a brighter feeling into my life. He says, it might be hard, but I really think that's what I need to do. I've prayed about it. It's what needs to be done. Just a great little moment as a dad where you're going, that's wise right there. And as a parent, I wanted to come down and say, this is ending. This is over. You're not going to do this anymore. But I felt like, let's trust the Lord. The Lord will talk to him, right? The Lord will guide him. So,

just a shout out to my boy for making a good decision on his influences. And Hank, I love what you said just then. Just, we're going to look at our influences, because it's not just people. It could be, you heard President Nelson talk about social media. Is social media a friend? Is the internet a friend? Are the movies I choose a friend? Are they making it easier for me to live the gospel? And so looking at all the influences, not just people, that's a great way to put it. Awesome. Well, we hope you'll join us next week for Follow Him Favorites. Come join us on our full podcast. It's called Follow Him. We are interviewing Dr. Dana Pike, and we're going through the book of Judges this week.

I think you'll love it. Come on over and join us. And make sure to join us next week for another Follow Him Favorites. Thank you.