Daily Devotional: Community & Fellowship, Iron Sharpens Iron

This is an opinion column.

BETTER TOGETHER

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”
Proverbs 27:17

REFLECTION

Iron sharpening iron is not a gentle process.

• It involves friction.
• Two hard surfaces pressed against each other.
• Heat and resistance.
• And the result is an edge that neither had before.

The image Proverbs gives us for genuine friendship is not two people sitting in comfortable agreement. It is two people willing to push against each other in the ways that matter, willing to tell the truth when the truth is inconvenient, willing to ask the question the other person has been hoping no one would ask.

Most of us have a shortage of that kind of friendship. We have plenty of people who are pleasant to be around, who affirm our decisions and validate our feelings and make us feel good about ourselves. Those relationships have their place. But if every person in your life agrees with everything you do and never challenges the direction you are heading, you are not being sharpened. You are being confirmed in whatever you already were, which may or may not be who you need to become.

The friendships that have shaped us most are usually the ones that cost us something. Real sharpening requires two things that are both in short supply:

• The humility to be sharpened — to receive challenge from someone who cares enough to offer it.
• The courage to sharpen — to love someone enough to tell them the truth they need to hear.

Most of us are more comfortable in one role than the other. Some of us accept challenge easily but rarely offer it. Others are quick to speak but slow to receive. Real community requires both. The willingness to be changed by the people God has placed around us, and the willingness to be used by Him to change them.

Who in your life has the permission and the relationship to tell you the truth about yourself when you need to hear it, and if no one does, what would it take to build that kind of trust with someone?

PRAYER

Lord, give us the courage to be sharpened and the love to sharpen others. Protect us from the comfortable community that only ever tells us what we want to hear. Bring into our lives the people who care enough to tell the truth and trust us enough to receive it. Make us humble enough to be changed by the people around us and brave enough to say the true, difficult, necessary thing when someone we love needs to hear it. Amen.