OPINION | By Dickson Tumuramye
As the saying goes; choose many friends but trust a few.
You need to be mindful of the people you accept anyhow in your life. Each one has something he/she needs from you. It is worse with ladies. Most men will pretend to be your very good friends yet they see you as a potential sexual object.
There are other things that come along our way to divert from our vision and focus in life. It only takes you to be determined and not distracted from it. I like how Daniel refused to be defiled by just mere food from the king’s palace and instead opted for vegetables. And because of that, he was later appointed a leader of the Babylonians even when he was a Hebrew. But as they say that the devil will attack you from corners, Daniel’s friends (Meshach, Shadrack and Abednego) were being accused of disobeying the King’s decrees and were thrown into the furnace of fire (Daniel 3). But because they stood their ground and refused to bow to the god of Nebuchadnezzar, they were promoted in the province of Babylon.
We all go through a lot of temptations, but if we stand on our principles, we will always emerge victors. Joseph was doing well in Potiphar’s house as a house help, but because he stood against sexual inducements, God’s plan for his life came to be fulfilled later. He would have lost his future appointment as a prime minister of King Pharaoh’s kingdom, moreover in a foreign land, had he conceded to Potiphar’s wife’s sexual demands.
When you live unprincipled life, you will be lured into any sin and we know that the wages of sin is death. The best way to stand our ground is to be like Daniel’s friends. They categorically informed the King that let it be known to you that we will not worship this idol and our God will deliver us from this fiery furnace but even if our God does not deliver us from your hands, we will not worship the gold image which you have set up (Daniel 3:16). That is the stand we need not only as Christians but as men and women of integrity, who are accountable to ourselves, parents, friends and nations. The materialist things of this world or cheap popularity should never lead us into sin.
We ought to live a life that is not toasted by any wave that comes across us. This calls us to self-awareness and self-reflection. If you knew very well the value of yourself and how graciously you are special to God, you would think so much about living a life that glorifies Him. And the best way to achieve this is to know Christ as your Lord and Saviour and live in the fear of the Lord. Paul tells the Philippians that as you have always obeyed not only in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:13 NKJV).
Let us all be mindful of living our lives with the fear of God and knowing that we are called to live a blameless and spotless life without any blemish in our Christian walk. But even if you are not yet born again, have clear values that govern your daily life. Choose to take a path which will bring you to a level where everyone admires to be like you at end of the day. Don’t be influenced by what everyone in your circles is doing. The writer of Proverbs says that there is a way which seems good but the end of it all is death (Prov. 14:12).
Avoid peer pressure and live according to your principles. Set yourself apart from what other people do. You may not be drinking or smoking yet your closest friends do these things. You can stand out to refuse what they do for the sake of your life and self-discipline. I know that among campusers, ladies who live in their respective halls/hostels without boyfriends are looked at as abnormal and unserious campusers. Your good friends can ask you that “how do you manage living without one?” This looks like very ideal but the repercussion in case things turn against you may be very worse for you and the same people will be the first to laugh at you when things go soar. They will nickname you “Katara Bosco” as the current hitting MTN advert of Bosco the magic man who turned mathematical.
The writer is a child advocate.
