“Great! Now what was I to do?” The machine guns (Who has machine guns???) were going off and had me pinned down behind one of the cars. I was safe but I needed to behind the one behind me to get to cover. Throwing some rocks in the air triggered another blast and a hail of of bullets. But they were short lived and I knew they were involved in reloading. I jumped across the hood of the car behind me, looking over to see what was going. While the new clip was now in I was behind the building.

As I ran behind the building, down the stream bed and to the populated town area, I thought, “that was pretty crazy. How had my friend got so involved?”

I awoke from the dream and my heart was still pumping from the run. I sat there thinking about my “friend” in the dream. A visitor to the church in recent days he had asked for help on somethings and I had decided to. I could tell his life had a “murky” past. But how bad can helping him be? This day he had invited me to what he said was his mom’s home. Well…apparently it was not…It was his friends and there was some “shadiness”. And drugs…and guns.

Now there are a couple of messages there.
1-Lee needs to watch out. There is danger.
2-Lee needs to use wisdom in who he helps.
3-Lee needs to stop with the sleeping part of life!

But here is the bigger part. Over time I have been giving consideration to what changes a person’s life and keeps them focused, moving towards the goal. I call it my road map for life has 3 things. Relationships, education and health.

Relationships will help you get where you are wanting to go or they will put you in the tully weeds!It may be fun to hang out with a certain person, but will they help you get where you need to go? (I am putting social meetings off the table. Go out, hang out, chill out. But even then…) Often we pick relationships for comfortability and not for edification, exhortation or encouragement. And while you can look at those as the hallmarks of New Testament prophecy, when you believe “you too can prophesy” well, you see the need for life speaking friends!

Many of my relationships are not comfortable by other’s standards, but they cause me to grow, to change. Who is chosen is important. They are chosen to make me grow.

In the dream the man made bad choices. Folks like that were NOT going to get him to his destiny. (It also could mean legalistic, always shooting kind of people are not healthy as well!)

Ask yourself today who in your list of friends is helping you achieve your goals. Who is not? Do they encourage, edify and exhort? Or do they discourage, deter and darken? One of the keys is “do you feel better”. Or worse? (Years ago I wrote about 3 kinds of people. The take, the status quo and the give. Those things are important.)

Who is helping you to grow? To stay on the path? When you look at a road map there are lots of places to go but will they get you to where you want to be?