Friday!

Proverbs!

Iron sharpens iron, 

and one person sharpens another.

Proverbs 27:17 CSB

The word for "another" here can be translated "friend". 

So if this sharpening is for or with a friend then it's for our good, our mutual good. 

This is not one person sharpening up the other, but a mutual work, where both people benefit.

And it also implies that we need this. 

An iron that needs sharpening must be a sword or a knife or a scythe or an axe, something that is not much use for what it was designed for, or at least ineffective, when it's blunt. 

We need one another as equals to sharpen us both. 

Iron sharpening iron could be noisy, clashing, dealing with what is blunt and giving it an edge could be uncomfortable, confronting. But it's not one person doing that to another, it's a mutual sharpening, so it might take a while, it might even be gentle, steady, quiet work. 

We're in this together. 

With the aim of being shaped into what (or who) we were designed to be.

#proverbs

#wisdom

#somethingtochewon

#inthistogether

#itsaheartthing