The average person meets about eighty thousand people in their lifetime. Some of those people will become friends, many will be acquaintances, and a few will become a significant part of our lives. Each of us has an inner circle of family and friends with whom we share our most important moments. Proverbs 30 would teach us to include wise people in that inner circle.

Whom do you call or text when you need someone to pray for you? Whom do you know who can offer wise counsel based on the truth of God’s counsel? Those are people we should work to include in our lives because those relationships will bless and strengthen our walk with God. 

Which people tend to have an ungodly influence in your life? They may be old friends, good friends, and fun friends, but time with them is rarely beneficial to your soul. They may give profitable advice, but their methods of arriving at the profit are not God’s.

Some people help us live with God’s higher standards while others encourage us to accept less. We all can have an inner circle of family and friends who help us know God and walk with him more closely. 

Of the eighty thousand people you meet, which relationships will make you wiser? Which will cause you to be foolish? 

Good advice and careful instruction provide wisdom. We should surround ourselves with people who provide a godly influence and pray that our own influence will provide God’s wisdom to others.