How Do You Choose Friends Wisely? (6 Questions to Ask)

When I was a newlywed, the phone rang late one night. A friend asked if I was sitting down. I'd played basketball for years with a guy named Larry — great athlete, great family, everything going for him. But somewhere in high school, Larry started running with the wrong crowd. I'd lost track of him for years. That night I found out why: Larry had murdered someone and was in the state penitentiary.

The next time I was back in my hometown, I made an appointment to see him. I walked through door after door into the prison yard, sat down at a picnic table, and watched Larry walk up with tears streaming down his face. I asked him what happened. He said four words I've never forgotten: "I had these friends."

I've heard that phrase more times than I can count. Someone ends up in the deep weeds, you ask what happened, and it comes out: "I had these friends." Here's what I want to help you do — move from "I had these friends" to "I have these friends." Because you don't drift into the right relationships. You choose them.

Your Friends Are a Mirror — They Show You Who You Really Are

We get training for everything. School, work, money, fitness. But the most important area of life — relationships — almost nobody teaches us how to do. So we just drift. We get sucked into whatever connections happen to form, and we call it friendship.

The Bible won't let us off that easy. Proverbs 27:19 says, "A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses." You looked in a mirror this morning and saw your face. But if you want to see what you're actually like — on the inside — look at your friends. They're the real mirror.

Here's the part that should get your attention: show me your friends, and I can show you your past, your present, and your future. We could sit down together, I could meet the people closest to you, and I could predict with unsettling accuracy where your life is headed. Because if you run with the crowd, the crowd runs you. Your friends aren't just company. They're a forecast.

Who Are "They"? The Sway of the People Around You

We talk about "they" all the time. "They said this." "They think that." Who are they? The "they" in your life are the foundational relationships in your world — and they have more pull on you than you realize. (I dig into how much that influence shapes you in the sway of they.

Here's a grid I use to size up the "they" in my life. Three words: affiliation, participation, destination.

Affiliation — who do you hang out with? Who's your squad, your circle, your people? Your affiliation always tells you what you'll be participating in. Participation — you're going to end up doing what your friends are doing. Count on it. And destination — where are they taking you? Because everybody's headed somewhere, and your friends are steering more than you think.

Look at Solomon. One of the smartest, wealthiest people who ever lived. God told him plainly: don't go solo, keep the right people around you. Solomon figured he was too smart to need that. He surrounded himself with people pulling him away from God, and for forty years he wasted his life. At the end he wrote one word over all of it: vanity. Chasing the wind.

Now look at Daniel. Stuck in Babylon, far from home, surrounded by temptation — and he found the right "they": Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That affiliation led to the right participation, which led to a destination where God used him as one of the most influential leaders of a nation. Same God. Two completely different outcomes. The difference was the "they."

Fray, Cray, and Way — The Three Kinds of People in Your Life

Not everyone who calls themselves your friend is the right "they." I sort them into three groups.

Fray people are the hangers-on — there for a season, then gone. On the edge of your life. You might be connected on social media, but they're not really friends. Even Jesus had fray people: the crowds that followed Him until He said something hard, then drifted off.

Cray people are the crazy ones — and you know if you've got one. They invade your space, blow up your phone, and bring drama everywhere they go. And here's the truth about drama: it doesn't just wander into your life. You either create it, invite it, or associate with it. The cray friends are an endless cycle of drama and trauma.

Way people are the ones you actually want. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Way people are on the way — they're not in your way, they're showing you the way. The problem is most of us spend so much time managing the fray and surviving the cray that we miss the way people God put right in front of us. I believe the enemy stacks the fray and the cray in your path on purpose, to keep you from the right "they."

Practical Framework: The Friendentory — 6 Questions to Choose Friends Wisely

Once, working inventory at a tuxedo shop, my mind kept wandering off the task. I want you to do a different kind of inventory — a friendentory. Run the people closest to you through these six questions, and you'll know whether you're with the right "they" or the wrong one.

Do they motivate me to love God more? The right friends stir you toward God; they don't drag you down. Hebrews 3:13 says to encourage one another daily. If someone is Negative Ned or Donna Drama — always down, always needing to be carried — that's a weight, not a friendship.

Do they celebrate God's blessings in my life? Proverbs 11:10 says the whole city celebrates when the godly succeed. I once had a friend who never celebrated anything good in my life. I felt judged, tolerated, like I was on stage. So I made a decision I'd repeat to anyone: go where you're celebrated, not tolerated. Real friends cheer your wins. Haters are sad over your successes and secretly fans of your failures.

Do they have my back? Proverbs 17:17 says a friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Your real friends are the ones still standing in your corner when everyone else has bolted. When David was on the run, he asked his mighty men one question — not how spiritual they were, just: "Are you with me?" The right "they" are with you.

Do they hold me accountable out of love? This is huge. Accountability grows out of affinity — you earn the right by loving someone first. Proverbs 27:6 says wounds from a friend can be trusted. I've kept a personal "board of directors" for decades — people close enough to tell me the truth. When David blew it, Nathan looked him in the eye and said, "You're messing up," and David received it, because he knew Nathan had his best interest at heart. Do you have people like that?

Do they live what they believe? Psalm 119:63 says, "I am a friend to all who fear You, to all who follow Your precepts." If you can't tell whether someone actually follows Christ — if they're not plugged into a Bible-believing church, not serving, not generous — that's a signal. The right friends don't just talk it. They live it.

Do they have the right "they" in their lives? Look at their track record. Who are their friends? 2 Corinthians 6:14 says don't be unequally yoked. A yoke joins animals of equal strength so they plow a straight line. Your closest friends shape your direction — so the people they run with matter too. This is the same principle behind being unequally yoked.

Larry had everything going for him, and four words undid it: "I had these friends." That sentence has been the epitaph on a thousand wasted lives. But it doesn't have to be yours.

You're not stuck with whoever drifted into your life. You can choose. You can swim away from the wrong "they" — and yes, sometimes that's hard and even painful — and swim toward the right ones. The best place I know to find them isn't a campus or a club or a feed. It's the church, surrounded by people moving toward God.

So do your friendentory this week. Be honest. And let's move you from "I had these friends" to "I have these friends" — the right ones, pointing you straight to God.