The desire to be liked, and to be popular with people is something that most of us grew up with. The need to have people around us is something that most of us enjoy. The one thing that we strive for daily is to not be alone, we need people. God wants us to have people in our lives, but, He wants us to have the right people around us. People want to be around us for various reasons. Some people use us, some manipulate us, and others take advantage of us if we allow them to. God wants us to have healthy, safe, Godly relationships. (Proverbs 18:24 One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.) I personally do not like having what I call one-sided relationships with people. A one-sided relationship is when I do all the giving and they do all the taking. We are not helping people find their purpose in life if we allow them to continually us to manipulate their own desires. We need to take inventory of the relationships we have in our lives and see if there are healthy. We need to be strong enough to cut relationships that are not healthy. We need friends in our lives. We need people who will value us for who God has made us to be and will respect the life we have chosen to live in Christ. Pastor Don [image: image.png]