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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Iron sharpens iron

"My friend would never hurt me. They are always looking out for me and protecting my feelings."
Would you say that you believe this is a true sentiment?
Living in this world, each of us get our share of hurts and hard feelings. We get beat around by life. We fall on rough circumstances, but our friends are to be our soft spot, our comforters. Right?
Can you take criticism from your friend without getting hurt? Are you thin skinned? How do you react when someone sees a fault in you?
This verse today tells us that as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. 
An axe or a knife or scissors that aren't sharp really aren't any good. They cannot effectively do that job that they were intended to do. 
As a child I used to watch my dad put on safety googles and use his grinding wheel to sharpen knives and scissors and saw blades for our neighbors. As he would hold the tools against the turning wheel, it would make a horrible grating noise. And sparks would fly off the tools and land on my dads arms and face. And then he would stop grinding and take the knife and shave the hair off his arm. Then he would either smile in satisfaction or go back to grinding some more.
Every once in a great while he would have to tell the neighbor that his tool was no good, it would not take on an edge. It would have to be replaced.
I remember asking my dad if the sparks hurt when they hit him. He told me that mostly they didn't, but occasionally it did.
You see as Christians we need to be keeping each other sharp. If we aren't sharp then we are no good for the job in which God intends for us. We do not want to be the tool that has to be thrown away. 
And although we may spark when someone grinds at our shortcomings and our faults, the edge we will have will definitely give us an edge in this world.
I want a true friend that keeps me sharp. I can take it. I am quality stuff. 

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