Who do you do life with? With whom do you spend the majority of your time? The people that you live in community with are going to be the people who influence you the most. Proverbs 13:20 says, “he who walks with the wise grows wise but a companion of fools suffers harm”. The people that you surround yourself with are either going to help you live a life worth celebrating or they are going to drag you down with them. If we are going to live life to the full then we need to surround ourselves with people who will help us become the best versions of ourselves. They need to be people who selflessly want to empower us and not just dump their problems on us. Jesus said the second greatest thing we could do in this life is “love people like we love ourselves.” Do the people around you love you like they love themselves? Do they love you unconditionally? Do you love the people around you like you love yourself?
Once we have surrounded ourselves with a great community of people, then it is time to start looking beyond ourselves into the lives of others. Often times, we get so caught up in our own situation that we forget there are a number of hurting people in this world who need to be helped. I have found that taking my eyes off of myself and trying to help someone else actually empowers me to live my life to the full. I will never forget when I was 16 years old standing in a garbage dump in Mexico, watching teens my age sift through the trash to find something to eat. It was the first time in my life my eyes were opened to how great my upbringing really was and how selfish I had become. I want to encourage you to find someone who has it worse than you do and do something kind for them. You will find that it unlocks a door to living life to the full.
No Small Life 