We grieved together when our baby sister, Jubilee Shalom, was stillborn, but we rejoice to know that, as Christians, we’ll see her again someday in heaven. The display during her funeral, shown here, says, “There is no footprint too small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world.”
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A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
—Proverbs 18:24
WE NEVER KNOW WHEN God is going to bring a new friend into our lives. One beautiful April morning as we were traveling to Big Sandy, Texas, to attend the annual Advanced Training Institute Family Conference, we had a tire blowout on the trailer we were pulling behind the RV. The trailer was packed with all the supplies we needed for a week of camping and attending the conference.
Dad and the boys were able to change the flat tire, but after examining some of the other tires, they decided we should probably go to a tire shop and buy a new spare. That meant going out of our way to find a tire store—a disappointment because we were all very eager to get to Big Sandy and meet up with friends we hadn’t seen since the last conference.
We ended up in a tire shop owned by a very sweet family that was also heading to the same homeschool conference later that day! What we first viewed as a setback turned out to be a huge blessing as we made some “accidental” new friends. We know now that God was orchestrating the whole thing.
The experience reinforced something Mom has taught us all our lives: that we are to thank God in everything He brings into our lives because we never know when a blessing, like a family of new friends, is waiting for us right around the bend—or in a small-town tire shop!
POINTING YOUR FRIENDS TO GOD
THE VERY BEST WAY to be a friend is to point your friends to Jesus. One powerful way we do this is by sharing testimonies of how God has worked in our own lives, just as our parents and Christian friends have shared their stories with us (see also Revelation 12:11). These stories help us understand how God can use any of us and anything—even our mistakes—to help others find their way to Him.
For example, Mom and Dad told us about a girl they knew—we’ll call her Marie. Marie was fifteen and had a sweet personality and winsome ways that made her one of the most popular girls in her high school. Thin and beautiful, she was a girl every guy probably wished he could date.
But Mom told us those characteristics were all just outward appearances. Inside her heart, Marie battled intense insecurity, destructive thoughts and emotions, and a longing for “real” happiness. Somehow, the more popular she became, the stronger her desire for everyone’s approval grew. And when she looked in the mirror, she didn’t like what she saw—not her outward appearance or the inner feelings she wrestled with.
She was an active member of the gymnastics team, a key member of the cheerleading squad, and her classmates chose her as a homecoming attendant. But her discontentment with herself wouldn’t go away. She constantly compared herself to others and was convinced she didn’t measure up.
On the outside, Marie had what everyone else wanted, but on the inside, she felt sad and empty. She began to envy the girls who were thinner than she was, and she started believing that she would be happy if only she could be as thin as they were.
She heard about another girl who tried to control her weight through what turned out to be a destructive eating disorder. Not realizing how dangerous it was, Marie thought it might work for her, and soon her obsession to stay thin started controlling her life.
Meanwhile, Marie was consumed with comparing herself with others and constantly worrying about what they thought of her.
Then one night a girlfriend invited her to spend the night, and that friend shared with her a movie that portrayed the end of the world. The movie terrified Marie. When it finally ended, Marie told her friend how scared she felt about what would happen to her when she died. Marie’s family didn’t go to church, and she had never read the Bible.
Her friend told her that Christians don’t have to be afraid of death or of the world ending, because they believe what the Bible says and they know they have the promise of eternal life in heaven.
Marie was amazed by her friend’s fearless confidence. She didn’t know what her friend was talking about, but she was very curious—and she wanted the same confidence she saw in her friend. So when the friend invited Marie to go to church with her the next night for a special revival service, Marie eagerly accepted.
During the church service, the preacher shared how God loves everyone, but that each person, individually, has violated His commandments. (At some point in our lives, we’ve all told a lie, taken something that’s not ours, had lustful thoughts, etc.) He went on to explain that that is the reason God sent His Son, Jesus, to earth—to pay the penalty for our sins. Jesus was sinless, yet He took the punishment for what we have done wrong when He was executed on the cross.
Then the preacher went on to share that if we, in faith, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and ask God the Father to forgive us for our sins as we turn from sin and give God the “steering wheel” of our life, He will come into our lives, guide us, give us peace, and take us to heaven when we die.
At the end of the service, the minister invited anyone who wanted to know more to come forward to speak with him. Marie popped out of her seat without an instant’s hesitation and hurried to the front of the church. She talked with the pastor, and right then and there, she asked God to forgive her sins and committed herself to following God’s plan for her life.
Marie joined an after-school club called Youth for Christ and started attending church occasionally. She got a job working at a yogurt shop and ended up falling in love with the shop manager’s son. Not only did she enjoy his sense of humor and appreciate his thoughtful manners, but she was especially impressed by the young man’s character and his love for the Lord. She’d never met anyone who had such a passion to seek after God. She found that passion contagious.
As they talked, Marie began to open up and eventually told the guy about her eating disorder. They prayed together frequently, and the two of them became accountability partners. With God’s help, over the next few months Marie overcame her devastating eating issues.
She and the shop manager’s son were married a few weeks after she graduated from high school; she was seventeen, and he was nineteen. They went on to have a houseful of children—nineteen, in fact, including four daughters they named Jana, Jill, Jessa, and Jinger . . .
The girl in the story was not actually named Marie, but Michelle. Now, Michelle Duggar. We call her Mom. And the boy she fell in love with? We call him Dad. Mom’s story teaches us so many lessons. First, it shows how God can use anything and anyone to change another person’s life for the better—something as “frivolous” as a high school student’s overnight stay at a girlfriend’s house or as unlikely as a teenage boy’s boldness to talk about spiritual principles found in the Bible.
Mom and Dad’s first date, in May 1983. They dressed up for Dad’s high school banquet.
It also shows how God can work through hard times and difficult circumstances to draw a person closer to Himself and bring about a change in his or her life. Mom’s teenage struggle for self-acceptance led her into some difficult emotional times and a very destructive habit that could have destroyed her health. But when her heart was opened to the gospel message and she received the truth that God loves us and that He wants to forgive us and offer us eternal life in heaven, then she was able—with God’s help and through strong accountability—to move away from the wrong choices she had made in her past.
Another lesson we’ve learned from Mom’s story and from our own experience is the powerful influence one friend can be in another’s life—for good or for bad. We think about the negative impact of Jessa’s friend (in the chapter on “Your Relationship with Yourself”) who was so focused on outward appearances and compare it to the life-changing impact Mom’s teenage girlfriend had on Mom’s life when they talked about life after death, and then when that friend invited Mom to church. That’s the kind of impact we hope to have with our friends—wherever and however God chooses to use us.
LEARNING ABOUT BEING JUDGMENTAL
AND THAT LEADS US to one more story we hope will help you understand what it means to “grow up Duggar.” It’s about something that happened a while ago as most of our family was in a van headed to the store. As we passed a girl walking down the sidewalk, one of the little boys yelled, “Don’t look! That girl’s not dressed right!”
The girl was probably an older teenager, and she was wearing a short-short skirt and a rather low-cut top. Our little brother’s tone was admittedly judgmental as he added, “That’s really bad!”
Our family’s tradition is that if we’re walking down the street as a group and someone dressed inappropriately is coming toward us, one of us will quietly say, “Nike.” That’s a signal to the boys, and even to Dad, that they should nonchalantly drop their eyes and look down at their shoes as we walk past her. It’s meant to help keep the guys’ eyes from seeing things they shouldn’t be seeing. By using the single-word signal, the warning can be given quietly and discreetly. We sure don’t want to be judgmental of others.
But on this day as we drove by the girl on the sidewalk, our little brother shared his opinion in a style all his own. In response, Mom issued a gentle but unforgettable reminder. “Be very careful how you talk about others,” she said. “I used to run around dressed worse than that.”
The vanload of kids was quiet for a moment as Mom’s words sank in. Then she added, “Not long ago, that was your mama.”
And besides, she said, not everybody has the same standards.
Mom reminded us that when she was growing up, totally clueless about modesty, she used to mow her yard in a bikini—and she wondered why the neighbor lady didn’t really like her (of course, the lady wanted to protect her husband and son from seeing the lawn girl)!
Some girls have a low self-worth, and they may think the only way they can attract a guy is to dress in a sensual way. But Mom says she was just naïve and no one had taken the time to explain to her what modesty meant. Back then she had no clue how her skimpy clothing affected guys around her.
It wasn’t until after she became a Christian that she started reevaluating how she dressed—and the other activities in her life as well, desiring to please God in every area. As a high school cheerleader dancing before a big crowd at a sporting event, she thought she was just getting everyone excited about the game. She had no idea that dancing around in a short skirt in front of a bunch of boys was causing many of them to think sensual thoughts about her and the other cheerleaders. When Mom began to understand this halfway through her senior year, she prayed about it and then decided to resign from the cheerleading squad. Since then she has always tried to dress modestly.
A lot of people didn’t understand why she would choose to give up one of the most coveted positions in the high school, but that was where she felt God was leading her. She also used to go to school dances but stopped participating when God convicted her that dancing stirred up a lot of sensual desires in young men and women that could not be righteously fulfilled. These decisions were a huge step in the beginning of Mom’s journey of trusting God. And her Christian walk began simply because a friend reached out to her and pointed her to Jesus.
BEING A FRIEND TO OTHERS
MOM HAS ALWAYS MODELED how a positive outlook, a cheerful disposition, and a friendly approach impact whatever situation we’re in, whether something goes wrong when we’re at home or in a stressful situation out on the road somewhere. We’ve seen how other people are drawn to Mom as though pulled in by a magnet. It’s because of her constantly cheerful attitude and because she is always ready to give a friendly, encouraging word to everyone she meets. She has a genuine heart of gold. She has befriended many, many people around the world, and she daily models for us how a pleasant demeanor can be a blessing to everyone nearby.
Daddy shares a story of another woman whose personality had that kind of impact on the people around her. The woman was Betty, a cashier at the grocery store where Dad worked when he was in high school. He noticed that Betty always had the longest line of any of the store clerks. It always seemed that Betty would have four or five people waiting in her line even when there was no one else in the other checkout lanes.
At first Dad was puzzled—I wonder why all these people want her to check out their groceries? Then one day he figured it out. Betty genuinely loved and cared about others, and to her, the people in her checkout lane weren’t simply customers. They had become her friends. She made it a point to remember her customers’ names, and she would ask about their families and make a personal connection with each one of them, all while efficiently ringing up their groceries. Later, when they would come back through, she would remember something they had told her and ask how things were going. She didn’t spend time talking about her own life or her problems but was always expressing interest in others.
Because of her winsome personality, customers loved her and were willing to wait in her lane just for a chance to say hello and share the latest news about their family or to update Betty on some other topics. Dad realized she was an amazing lady, and during the years he worked there, he learned a lot by just observing her work and interact with others.
We’ve seen this same lesson modeled by our parents again and again. And it’s true: the person who shows love the most is loved the most! By asking friends questions about themselves, their interests, and their backgrounds, we let them know we care about them. That’s the kind of friend everybody wants.
Dad has told us about Dorothy Dix, a very popular advice columnist in her time who reportedly wrote, “There is nothing you can possibly say to an individual that would be half as interesting to him as the things he is dying to tell you about himself. And all you need, in order to get the reputation of being a fascinating companion, is to say: ‘How wonderful! Do tell me some more.’ ”
Dad and Mom helped Johannah and Jackson at their Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation booth to collect donations for cancer research.
When Dad meets a new person, let’s say it’s a man he’s sitting beside on an airplane, he will ask what kind of work he does, if he has children, where he lives, and where he grew up. And then Dad listens to the answers and responds in ways that say, “Tell me more!” He can carry on a ten-minute conversation simply by listening to answers to these questions. Then he will usually ask them questions about their church background, maybe starting with “Did you ever go to church anywhere growing up?”
His hope is to be a spiritual encouragement to those he comes in contact with. Often he will share a scripture from the Bible or possibly some of our favorite resources that have helped our family, such as the website embassyinstitute.org.
By taking a genuine, friendly interest in others, we can open doors to share about Jesus’s love and point others to His Word.
Bringing up spiritual matters can feel somewhat awkward at first! But when you’ve shown you truly care for others, the questions come more naturally and usually are understood as concern rather than as judgment or criticism.
Our friend Andrew had one of those experiences that paid off in a huge way when he was talking to another friend, Nathan Bates. As the two young men were talking about what they wanted to do with their lives, Andrew mentioned that he might want to go into photography. Nathan told Andrew he should be praying and asking God what He wants him to do with his life. That got Andrew thinking, and after some soul searching, he realized he had never truly committed his life to God and that he was directing his own life.
Andrew ended up asking Jesus to come into his life and to be his Lord and Savior. Nathan then offered to disciple him to help him grow as a Christian; Nathan became his “accountability buddy.” They both committed to start at the beginning of the Bible and read five chapters each day (knowing this would get them through the entire Bible in a year). Later Nathan invited our brother Joseph and a few other guys to join them in reading through the Bible. Each week Nathan would call up the guys individually to talk about what they had read and what they were learning. This grew into more than a dozen young men reading through the Bible together, and it had a huge impact on all of their lives.
Think about your last conversation with your friend. Did it lovingly challenge him or her spiritually?
Do your conversations tend to focus on a movie star you think is cute? A celebrity’s latest romantic encounter? A classmate’s messy breakup with her boyfriend? The shoes that girl in church was wearing? Or are they conversations that count for something? Ephesians 4:29 says, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.”
Many teenagers and young adults spend most of their time, energy, and thought focused on their friends and how they can have fun together. But think about the good you could do if your friendship focused not just on having fun right now but on matters of great importance—now and throughout eternity. We encourage you to carefully consider who you spend time with and what you do with that time. Jesus did not say to make friends but to make disciples!
STANDING ALONE
EVERYONE MAKES BAD CHOICES at times throughout life and ends up suffering the consequences for his or her actions. That’s why it’s so important to read the Bible and ask God what things He wants you to add to your life and what things He wants you to leave out. Predetermining what God wants you to leave out or add to your life is another way to describe standards or convictions. If you have strong convictions about what God wants you to do (or not do), then when you’re faced with a situation where friends ask you to do something, you can run it through the filter of God’s Word to know what He thinks about it. Living your life based on what you believe God’s Word says can sometimes mean not fitting in with the crowd, but in the long run, you will have avoided the pitfalls that have destroyed many young people’s lives. We should not judge one another or try to force our beliefs on others, but it doesn’t hurt to discuss what the Bible says about different topics to encourage each other in our walk with God.
One of the most important demonstrations of character and integrity comes when a person has the courage to stand for what he or she knows is right—even when that means standing alone.
One of the stories Mom and Dad have told us kids repeatedly is about a couple whose young daughter begged her parents to let her go to an overnight slumber party at one of her classmates’ homes. She felt this was a big deal, and all the other girls in her class were going to be there. The parents checked out the invitation and talked to the parents of the slumber party girl and decided to let their daughter go. But before her dad dropped her off, he talked to her about the importance of standing alone.
Jinger and Dad enjoyed our sightseeing flight over the Grand Canyon, but the scenery inside the little plane wasn’t so pretty. Most of us got really airsick.
He told her, “If someone ever asks you to do something you know is wrong, you can say politely, ‘I’ve given my life to Jesus, and I’m not able to do that.’ ” He prayed with her before she got out of the car, asking Jesus to make her a positive influence while she was with the other girls and also that she would have the courage to stand up for what was right.
The party was lots of fun, and the girl had a great time playing games with her friends. And of course, what is a birthday party without a big piece of cake and a scoop of vanilla ice cream? But late that night, before bed, the mom suggested they have a “pretend séance” using a Ouija board.
When the girl heard what this involved, she said respectfully and quietly to the group, “I’m not going to be able to do this.”
When the mom asked why not, the girl replied, “I’ve given my life to Jesus, and I’m not able to do things like this.”
The mother was stunned by the little girl’s words—and by her quiet courage in speaking up for her beliefs. She packed up the Ouija board and suggested the girls play something else before bed.
Our parents have told us this story many times, and as youngsters we role-played how we would respond to friends who suggested doing something we knew we shouldn’t do.
We all face times when someone—many times even a friend—might encourage us to do something we know we shouldn’t do. It’s essential to understand how to stand firm on what you know to be the truth, especially when it comes to something that would contradict God’s Word.
Sometimes Christians have to stand up for their own beliefs and convictions even when they’re with other Christians. This is much harder because, all too often, it will be fellow Christians who give us the hardest time over our differences. Other Christians sometimes assume that just because we choose to do or not do something we are judging them for not being exactly like us. That’s not the case! We realize that God leads people and that not everybody will embrace the same things or at the same time.
For example, some friends of ours had a husband and wife visiting at their house one day, and one of the kids suggested that this man join them for a card game—probably something like Speed or Spoons. But their friend politely refused. The kids thought that was unusual, but later the man explained that his father had been a gambler who had wasted away all the family savings, gambling on card games. As a result, the man had vowed that he would never touch a deck of playing cards. It was his personal conviction.
Sometimes when we see someone else’s convictions as offbeat, we may be tempted to try to talk that person out of something we see as silly or unnecessary. But this man’s story reminds us that God may have put that conviction in place for a specific reason, as a safeguard or protection. We should never make fun of others’ standards.
ENCOURAGING FRIENDS TO DO RIGHT
OUR PARENTS HAVE OCCASIONALLY cautioned us about a person who could be a bad influence, and they’ve given us ideas for how we might encourage him or her toward wiser decisions. Sometimes it’s amazing to see what just a few words can do to help someone reevaluate what he or she is doing; in the same way, simple words can encourage someone to grow in his or her walk with the Lord.
This is true even for the youngest children. Dad became a Christian when he was only seven, and one day when he and some other little grade school classmates were out on the playground, one of the boys started using God’s name as a curse word. Dad quietly told the boy he wished he wouldn’t misuse God’s name. “After all,” Dad told his little friend, “He’s the One who made us and loves us.”
From then on, when Dad was playing with these boys and a bad word slipped out, they would catch themselves and apologize. They really tried to think about the words they were saying. He and Mom have shown us that sometimes it’s good to speak up politely and respectfully in situations where something happens that we know is wrong—especially with our Christian friends—and to encourage them to do what is right.
If it’s true that the negative peer pressure of a friend is the greatest motivation to do wrong, then the opposite would also be true: positive peer pressure is the greatest motivation to do right. There will be times when, as a loving friend, we may need to bring it to someone’s attention that something he or she did or said has hurt or offended another person. Just as we discussed when we were talking about sibling relationships, in Matthew 18 Jesus gives us a proper way for handling offenses one-on-one, and it does not include blabbing gossip to other friends.
One of the things that destroys relationships with friends and siblings almost faster than anything else is mean-spirited teasing and joking. And often, this is another situation that calls for you to speak up or confront a friend. Now, we’ve already said that Duggars are the first to enjoy a laugh as a family when everyone involved knows that something is a joke and it doesn’t belittle or hurt anyone. And by now you probably understand that Daddy loves nothing more than pulling a good joke on someone. (Remind us sometime to tell you about the time, after a meal in a foreign country, Dad convinced some of us, including an unsuspecting family friend, that he’d found out the meat in the entrée we’d just eaten was barbecued dog.)
Here’s Dad around age seven or eight. Even at a young age, he stood up for what is right.
But remember: it’s important that the joke doesn’t involve teasing, where someone is ridiculed for something he or she did either accidentally or on purpose (we should never “jokingly” call anyone names or put others down).
Mom and Dad have stressed to us from an early age that making fun of someone is never right.
Mom tells us about an incident during her high school days when she overheard some football players teasing another student, daring him to eat a bug and jeering that he wasn’t tough enough to do it. He wanted the football players’ acceptance so much that he finally popped the bug into his mouth and took a few chews. But as soon as he swallowed it, they ridiculed him even more, making fun of him and telling him he was disgusting for doing something “so gross.”
Mom was a cheerleader at the time, and she charged into the crowd of bullies and chewed them out for being so mean. It makes us laugh now to think of our sweet mama bawling out those big, tough football guys who probably towered over her. But she wasn’t about to stand by while someone was badly mistreated.
In this case, the offense was done by multiple people and it was being carried out publicly, so Mom jumped on their unkind behavior right in the middle of the situation. Usually, though, we would try to take that person aside and “tell him his fault between thee and him alone,” as Jesus tells us to do in Matthew 18:15.
UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF A FRIENDSHIP
MOM AND DAD HAVE taught us to understand how influential friends can be for good or bad, and they’ve stressed the importance of choosing friends wisely. They have said that, just like a ship has a small rudder that determines its direction, our friendships and our small choices determine our life direction.
Earlier in this book we described how I (Jessa) had friends whose attention, as we grew into the teenage years, seemed to be constantly focused on temporal things and outward appearances—such as which girls had the prettiest hair and cutest clothes and which ones didn’t. The more I was around them, the more I found myself forming that perspective on life as well.
It’s especially easy for teenage girls to get caught up in this kind of thing at a time when what we want most is to be accepted by others. But my parents helped me put those friends’ attitudes in perspective. I became determined to find friends who helped me focus on character, such as having a kind, servant-hearted attitude toward others, instead of friends whose focus was fixed on watching all the newest movies, listening to the latest pop music, and judging others whom they deemed “not cool.”
True friends encourage us to focus on things that are beneficial to us. We will grow closer to God because of our relationship with them. We share an interest in reading and memorizing Scripture and learning more about living a Christ-like life. We enjoy working together to serve others whether it’s on a mission trip to Central America or helping an elderly neighbor clean up and maintain a deteriorating home. We can share our struggles with godly friends, knowing they will keep what we say in confidence and give advice for wise decisions based on God’s Word.
Our Grandma Duggar’s story shows how one person, striving to live this kind of life, can have a powerful impact on others. Grandma grew up in a very poor family. Her home didn’t have indoor plumbing or air-conditioning. A wood-burning stove in their small home’s living room provided the only heat in wintertime.
When Grandma was fifteen, she became a Christian, but the rest of her family didn’t go to church. In fact, for several years, one of her brothers would mock her and make fun of her faith in God. Her dad was a very angry man who often used foul language. Her mom worked long hours in a chicken-processing plant. It was a hard life.
However, despite her very difficult situation, Grandma Duggar’s faith in God grew stronger as she continued to attend church, read her Bible regularly, and do what God’s Word said to do. She didn’t “preach” to her family. She simply and quietly modeled a Christ-like life for them.
Grandma Duggar is an important part of our family—and also a great miniature golfer, as Justin, Jason, and Josiah can attest.
Years later, her younger sister and her brother, who had been self-proclaimed atheists, ended up becoming Christians. The brother who used to mock her is now a Sunday school teacher. Grandma kept the faith despite her family’s apathy and opposition, and in doing so she became a light God used in drawing her loved ones to Himself.
We want friends like that: those who will not only “talk the talk” about what they believe but also “walk the walk,” living out their beliefs in everyday life and working to follow what God says even when the going gets tough. It’s such a blessing to have friends who have that genuine enthusiasm for the Lord. We’re happy to have that kind of influence rub off on us! And that’s also the kind of friend we should strive to be.
On the other hand, we want to be careful about the people with whom we choose to share our time and our hearts as close companions. An incident in one of our family’s rental properties a few years ago served as an illustration for the way prolonged contact with a corrosive influence can cause harm, even when it seems unlikely. The situation occurred after Dad rented a commercial warehouse to a local soda distributor. When the renter decided he no longer needed the space, he agreed with Dad that he would leave a few things behind to cover the remaining money owed. Included in the things left behind there were a few pallets of sugarcane sodas plus a large pallet of energy drinks.
We shared some of the drinks with friends, but there were too many to get through right away. When the weather changed dramatically, a couple of the cases of energy drinks exploded. But the problem wasn’t noticed for a couple of weeks, and by then the sugary, carbonated liquid had had plenty of time to soak into the floor. When the guys began the cleanup process, spraying down the floor with a pressure washer, they were shocked to find that the energy drinks had actually eroded away a layer of the concrete—in some places, a half-inch deep!
Mom made a parallel out of the situation and pointed out to us how the same thing happens when we spend lots of time with “friends” who may seem sweet and appealing but who are exerting a harmful influence on our hearts.
Dad has told us the story of a nice, likable young man who grew up in a Christian home but eventually became a drug addict. During this guy’s high school years, he formed his closest friendships with a group of young people who had little character and would throw parties almost every weekend. Their sole purpose in life was to “have a good time.” This young man had never been the wild type, but for whatever reason, he had begun to desire their acceptance.
One night when he was invited to a party by one of these friends, he decided to go. Seeing that he was a bit standoffish at first and in the corner by himself, his friend walked by and handed him a beer. Now he had a decision to make (and obviously, he never should have put himself in this situation in the first place).
This guy had grown up in church, so he knew the Bible has a lot to say about the foolishness of drinking alcohol (see Proverbs 20:1 and Proverbs 23:29–35). At first he just stood there holding the beer in his hand, smiling and contemplating what he would do. He had never had a desire to drink, but he did not want to feel like an outsider, so when no one was looking he poured half the beer into a nearby potted plant. A little later his friend came by and said, “You didn’t drink any, did you?” Then, grabbing the bottle out of his hand, he noticed that it was half empty. “Hey, guys, he’s one of us!” the friend announced to everyone.
Shortly after that the young man started drinking; later he got introduced to drugs. How sad that one, seemingly small decision started him on a path of self-destruction. If only he would have looked down the road and counted the cost! Instead, he lived only for the moment, and it ruined his life.
Proverbs 24:1–2 warns, “Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them. For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief.”
Mom tells of another young man she knew who was a top honor student. Because of his intellectual genius, he received a full four-year scholarship to the University of Arkansas. But he formed friendships with the wrong people. Every Sunday morning he was in church, but every Friday and Saturday night he was out drinking with his friends. One weekend he was involved in an alcohol-related rollover accident, and it nearly took his life. He survived, but he ended up suffering brain damage that permanently changed the course of his future. My parents have often wondered what his life would have been like had he made other choices.
By hearing these examples, we Duggars have seen the importance of choosing friends who will encourage us to do right and make wise decisions. But we’re definitely not talking about living in a bubble and refusing to have contact with those who are not Christians or don’t believe just the way we do. In fact, as Christians, our purpose in life is just the opposite. We’re to reach out to everyone in love, sharing a kind word or a helping hand, no matter what a person’s beliefs or background. But in these interactions, it’s important to stand strong and not be swayed by others’ beliefs. While it’s good to minister to others, we need to make sure at the same time that we are not carelessly walking into situations where we’re going to be tempted to make wrong choices.
Dad uses this analogy quite often: Imagine you’re standing on a table, trying to pull someone up. You have to be very careful, because many times the other person can pull you down a lot easier than you can pull that person up! But if there were two people on the table, it would be much harder for both of them to be pulled down, and together they would have a much better chance of helping the other person up onto the table. Keeping this in mind, when we are ministering to a person in need, we Duggars often work two-on-one, just to have that extra encouragement and “the upper hand.”
Several of us enjoyed biking in Central Park during a visit to New York City.
A true friend is one who spiritually encourages us and motivates us to do what is right, rather than undermining our beliefs. We should all strive to be that kind of friend to others.
One of the easiest ways to form this kind of friendship is to spend time with people who are growing spiritually and who have a ministry mind-set. Good Christian friends may or may not be part of the “in crowd,” but it’s much more important to have friends who love God deeply and want to serve Him than to have friends who are concerned about popularity, status, and recognition!
The best place to find this type of friend is at a Bible-teaching church. Search out those who are excited about the things of God and spend time with them. It will be contagious!
As Grandma Duggar always says, “Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.”
When you look at the people you’ve chosen as friends, what kind of future do you see?