When I was growing up it was common to hear warnings about giving in to peer pressure.

“If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?” was many parents’ go-to question when hoping to influence their children to think for themselves.

With today’s world-wide social media, it isn’t only close friends who exercise influence upon our children and upon ourselves. There is a tremendous pressure to appear to be “in” with what we might call the “cool kids” of society.

Having and sharing opinions or values which are not sufficiently woke can make us feel like an outcast, like the kid who always got chosen last for teams in school.

In order to stay on top of what is currently acceptable to the elite, many turn to social media stars, those new creatures called “influencers” who can be relied upon to tell us how to think and live in this glittery new age.

While I am no longer in school or subject to parental warnings about peer pressure, I have a sinking feeling that many of those trying to influence us today are jumping off that proverbial cliff.

I can feel the pull of those trying to convince me to join them in that leap. It is the fashionably smart thing to do, they say, “All the trendy folks are doing it, come on, don’t be an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud.”

The best way to resist the lure into darkness is to stay as near as possible to the trustworthy, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving Influencer, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and His precious Word.

• Psalm 16:11 You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
• Psalm 17:4 Concerning the works of men, By the word of Your lips, I have kept away from the paths of the destroyer.
• Psalm 17:5 Uphold my steps in Your paths, That my footsteps may not slip.
• Psalm 25:4 Show me Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths.