Day 4: Blind Leading the Blind

Tied Souls by Rodrika Williams

Peer Pressure

It’s nice to think of peer pressure as a teenage problem—that we are pulled off track by the people in our lives for only a few irresponsible years.

Do you think that’s true?
Or do friends, loved ones, influencers, and teachers lead you astray in other seasons of your life? (Hint: Probably.)

God built us to need relationships, meant for us to live in community. We find our way through the world by watching those around us and imitating their choices. In our quest for acceptance and success, neighbors, teachers, church leaders, and online influencers become our role models. Friends, relatives, loved ones, and mentors become our guides.

All too often, we mute the Spirit within us and follow others into choices that are not good for us. Afraid to be left behind, we spend time or money we can’t afford. Seeking a shortcut to intimacy, we overshare physically or emotionally. Worried about being wrong, we let others tell us what is right.

We never really outgrow peer pressure. It just evolves, growing more sophisticated and harder to root out.

Where do you see peer pressure snaking its way into your life?
Where do you allow others to guide your steps—or perhaps you try to tell others what to do?

Blind Leading the Blind

The Pharisees were the religious elite in Jesus’s day. They let their enthusiasm for “right religion” blind them to God’s true intentions for His kingdom. Matthew 15 finds Jesus warning his disciples about the Pharisees. “Ignore them,” He says, “They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”

The lyrics to Tied Souls, by Rodrika Williams, say:

​​Look now we sinkin’

Used to be dreaming

Used to be beaming

Used to be gleaming

We hid it far from the people

Knew it was wrong

But we kept going deeper

Blind lead the blind

We seen with our eyes

Faith would’ve factored if fear was the prime

Feared the one who made us

Feared the one who gave up his whole

Life to save us

Rodrika explains that the song is about a couple falling into a pattern of struggling with lust. She continues, “But we know that scripture says our righteousness is filthy rags, and it isn’t until they truly repent and turn away from their sins and plead the blood of Jesus that they become free from this pattern and habit.”

Finding Freedom

Isn’t it freeing to know that if we want to escape the influence of others and climb out of the ditch, all we need to do is recognize we’ve gone astray and ask for God’s help? He is always ready to forgive, restore, renew, and repair every part of our lives.

Where have you stumbled?
How can God restore you today?