Day Twenty-Four Forty Days of Focus: Relationships

What happens when you need new friends? If your friends are not the kind of people who will encourage a you and support you, protect you and speak truth into your life, it's best to look for some new ones. Any friend is not a good friend. In the Disney version of Pinocchio, the young boy made of wood is trying to figure out how to make his way in the world. Desperate for friends and wanting to be like other boys his age, he makes fast friends with some boys who are trouble-makers. His impressionable young mind is quickly turned to rebellion and a life of ease. The boys are soon recruited by a stranger to join the party and go to Pleasure Island for some good fun with no adults to ruin things. Once there, they begin to play pool, smoke cigars and let loose. As the story goes, they soon begin to transform from human children to donkeys. That's when Pinocchio realizes his mistake and makes a run for it, but not before he grows ears and a tail. It's a fictionalized version of what happens when you hang with the wrong crowd, but Pinocchio's response is perfect. He doesn't stop to say goodbye or slowly pull away from the friends he's made. No, Pinocchio drops everything and runs from the folly he's joined. If you are with the wrong group of friends, you need to drop them and run. Not all friends are good friends.