So last night I watched a show I had saved on the DVR.  The show was about truck drivers, delivering loads over various dangerous roads.  Well, this one driver’s load was a flock of sheep.  When they arrived at their destination and opened the trailer, the sheep just stood there looking at them.  You’d think after being penned up for so long, they’d be anxious to go free; but no, they were afraid to jump down….until one sheep leaped out.  Then one by one the others followed.   At that point, my hubby mentioned something he’d heard some time ago…that sheep were such “followers”, and that if one sheep jumped off a cliff, regardless of the peril, the others would mindlessly follow.  Well, that’s the last thing I remember about the show because God began to teach me from what I’d just seen. 

PEER PRESSURE IS HUGE
And the door swings both ways.

There’s positive peer pressure, the kind that the one sheep that leaped out of that truck first had placed on the rest of the flock.  Those sheep would have remained stuck in that closed in space without food and water had that one sheep not had the courage to jump out.  That sheep could represent the Christian who knows the right thing to do, and does it regardless of what the others around her does or doesn’t do.  Because humans generally look horizontally, this kind of person can do great things for the Kingdom of God by setting the right example for those around her.

Then there’s the negative kind of peer pressure, like the kind my hubby mentioned…where a sheep carelessly jumps off a cliff to its death, while the others mindlessly follow.  What we do, the actions we take, matter because, whether we know it or not (or sometimes it’s whether we “acknowledge” it or not), there are unbelieving people all around us watching to see what choices we will make. There are also fellow believers who may need to observe you making the right choices to be encouraged to do the same.