King Noah's Greatest Mistake (Teaching kids about the importance of friends)

Choosing Friends
Driving home from my mom's house the other night I started talking with my boys about the account of King Noah. I realized how much this story applies to my children right now in their lives while choosing and making friends. Then after writing most of this post I realized it wasn't only about my kids, it was also about me, and my choice of online media that acts as "my friends"in my environment.

It isn't just a story about how an entire people was led to near destruction or about how a wicked king killed a prophet of the Lord but it is a story about choosing friends and how these friends can not only influence the course of our lives but also our path into the eternities.

One of the first things that Noah does as King is releases his fathers righteous priests and puts in wicked priests. So in other words, he surrounds himself with wicked friends. This is King Noah's "greatest" mistake. 

King Noah
There are few figures in the Book of Mormon that are as wicked and looked down on as much as King Noah. Against his full knowledge of the gospel he not only led himself into an unrighteous path but he also brought his entire people down to a lower level of sin and near physical and spiritual destruction. He murdered Abinadi, tried to murder Alma and 450 of his own people who fled with Alma into the wilderness and commanded his men to abandon their wives and children to die in the face of the Lamanite army. So as a coward, a wine biber, and as a man who sought only his own desires why would I suggest that his greatest mistake was his choice of friends?

...Because sometimes there are choices that we make early on which can influence future choices that have greater price tags...and these later choices can be even more critical to our salvation. 

Some choices influence other choices
Our choice of our environment, for example, is important because our environment often seeps into our souls and into our thoughts and influences who we are. Part of this environment is our friends. Another part of this environment is the media we consume. Even our online social media environment influences who we become and can become a "thief of thoughts". It can be said that you can control your environment you can often control yourself.

Notice I didn't say King Noah's greatest sin was his choice of friends. He committed sins that were far graver than this, but it could be possible that his greatest "mistake" was indeed his choice of friends. One of the first things that we read that he does as king is replace the priests of his father with his own bad friends. These new priests lived just as wickedly or worse than he did. (Mosiah 11:4)

There was one faithful moment after Abanadi had prophesied boldly where King Noah actually wanted to let Abanadi go. He had remembered the words of his own father and he feared to words of Abanadi.  Because King Noah had surrounded himself with bad friends, however, he caved to their pressure and pleadings to not let Abinadi go and King Noah killed a prophet of God instead. This sealed a far worse fate for himself than living in sin and lead him down a even darker road than he had known before. (Mosiah 17:10-13)

In the end, he died in the same way he condemned Abinadi to die which was by fire and at the hands of his people. Think how differently his life might have turned out had he kept his fathers priests and if he had surrounded himself with righteous friends instead. (Mosiah 19:20)

There was a time where I was more competitive in marathon running. It is a well known fact in endurance athleticism that if you want to be the best you need to practice with the best. It took a lot of effort to find and run with people that I knew would make me better. I think the same applies to those that we choose to be around. We are our best selves when we surround ourselves with those who bring out the best in us and expect the best from us. King Noah's greatest mistake was that he chose to silence the good voices around him and instead fed and surrounded himself with those that in the end brought him the most pain.

So to my children I ended with "Run with the best to be your best." Surround yourselves with good friends. That does not mean to neglect or ignore people who make bad choices but it takes great effort to find and keep friends who are good. Don't let your choice of friends end in some of your greatest mistakes instead choose friends who will boost you upwards and lead you a long a path of goodness and light.