September 22, 2025 Devo

I have lots of friends. I hope you do, too. I have friends at church. I have friends from the Y. I have friends from cities all around the country where I’ve lived and pastored. I have friends that I’ve grown up with. I have friends I went to college with. I have friends in my neighborhood. Thanks to social media, I now have friends on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
But I also have “companions.” Friends are people I talk to, laugh with, and enjoy being around. Companions are more than that. Companions are people we bring in CLOSE. Companions are not just people we share life with. They are the people we PROCESS life with. Friends have our ears. Companions have our hearts. Companions are the people whom we bring into our deepest fears, our darkest times, and our greatest struggles. They are people whom we let shape our opinions, push back on our assumptions, and help make our decisions. You can be friends with anyone. Jesus was. But Jesus only brought 12 guys close. And only 3 guys REALLY close. Those were his “companions.”
I thought about this when I read our verse for today. I realized that many people don’t make the distinction. They let “friends” speak into their important decisions. They let people who have no real investment in their lives shape their decisions about stuff that really matters. And it’s dangerous. Look how the Psalmist describes companions. “Faithful.” That means people who are committed to God. It also means people who are committed to YOU. Both of those are important.
When I see people post stuff on social media, asking for people to speak into their lives about significant matters of faith, marriage, or family decisions, it scares me. Those are DELICATE matters. They are IMPORTANT matters. They are SACRED matters. Those aren’t things you put up for a vote on Facebook. Nor are they things you ask your casual friend at the gym about. You want people who are going to be THOUGHTFUL to help you with that. You want people who are going to be PRAYERFUL to walk with you through that. You want people who are going to feel the joy or sorrow of your decision as much as you will because they love you like they love themselves. Those kinds of people aren’t just “friends.” They are companions.
My prayer for you today is that God will help you to be more discerning and careful about the people you let close. I pray that He will bring some people alongside you who will be faithful, committed people. I hope that, like Jesus, you make friends wherever you go. But I pray that for the hard places and the big decisions on the journey, God gives you a few “companions.” That’s God’s Word for you today.