As it relates to the space shuttle, experts will tell you that maintaining proper orbit is a delicate affair. To maintain proper orbit, the onboard computers constantly make course and altitude corrections. Small rockets fire to make these adjustments. Larger jets burn to make proper and major changes. If the rockets don’t fire, or don’t fire properly, if they overcompensate, the space vehicle can veer off its orbit and go tumbling out into space toward the outer edges of the universe. Similarly to keep our lives in proper orbit, we need to constantly make “course and altitude corrections.”

This is why we need people in our lives to act as small rockets, thrusters, jets to help us make the course corrections so we maintain our orbit. As we move through life, if we don’t constantly correct our course the risk is that we too, we’ll spin out of control toward the outer edge. Proverbs 27:17 NKJV says, “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” In life there are two types of friends: the basement friend brings you down and lowers you into the basement; the balcony friend encourages you and lifts you up higher to the balcony. What kind of friends do you have? What kind of friend are you?