On friends

Be very careful in your choice of friends. Do not open all your heart to a boy/man because he is smart, funny, good-natured and kind. All that is very good in its own, but that is not all. Never make an intimate friend of the man who is not best friends with God first, and of any who will not be useful to your soul. You will resist many temptations if your friends love God above all things. (Ryle)

You may work very hard on your character, you may have great self control, you may have read great books, but having ungodly friends will destroy your character very fast, and working to tr to get rid of your new bad habits, it will be much harder.

Take Salomon's good advice. He is known as the wisest man that has ever lived, he has done it for us, he has gone to all the extremes that will ever exist, he has tried it all, and we can now read of what he learned without having to do any of those extremes.. and what do we read? what was what he learned?.. that all is vanity. That there is nothing that will bring satisfaction to your life. At the end of all life, there is nothing. Nothing of value. Nothing worth having or seeking. But that pleasure in life is only found in God. There is a good saying: "we do not need to invent the wheel again". Someone invented it already, we can just read about it and learn. The same way, Salomon did all that, and wrote about it so that we do not have to go through that, we can just read and learn.

Mom.