Daily Reflections on Mt. 7:15-20 (Good Apples and Bad Apples, Choose Your Friends Wisely)

There's an old adage in business hiring practices that says the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. For the most part I've found that to be true. There have been some rare circumstances that that has not proved to be accurate, but 95 percent of the time it is. It really is hard for a leopard to change his or her spots.

I've watched young ladies time and time again fall in love with a young man vowing to she'll change his evil, lazy, abusive, ambitionless, or godless ways when they were married. It isn't long before reality hits. The marriage struggles, dreams are dashed, and all too often the fading romance gives way to disaster and divorce.

By the same token, I've advised young men to look closely at the young lady's mother to which they are entwined. The values of the mom are more often that not adopted by the daughter. Many times even mannerisms are unwittingly assimilated. How a young woman's mother treats her father is a pretty good indicator of how she'll treat her husband. There's another cliche, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

Having done more funerals than I can count, it's pretty easy to tell what kind of person the deceased was in life by the number of flowers and sympathizers at the visitation and/or funeral. Giving, gracious, others-centered persons almost always draw bigger crowds and an abundance of florals. On the other hand, stingy, hateful, merciless, self-centered people produce quiet, unadorned mortuaries.

Jesus said by our fruit people will know who and what we are. He noted that good trees produce good fruit and bad trees produce bad fruit. The first question I have to ask myself is, "What kind of fruit am I producing?" The second question is, "What kind of fruit are my friends, boyfriend, girlfriend, chillin' buddies producing?" If one bad apple will spoil the whole bunch, what kind of apples are you hangin' with currently?

God, all of my fruit isn't so good. I need you to fertilize and water and nurture and prune where necessary. Give me the wisdom to choose my friends and associates. Help me surround myself with good trees and apples. Help me cut off the savory, questionable, negative influencers in my life.