Iron
“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” - Prov. 27:17
Friendship. It is a matter of life or death.
Thousands of years ago, a young warrior was appointed to lead in battle, given one of the king's daughters, a place in his house, and all but a share in the kingdom itself after a huge military victory. He had come from humble beginnings and was known for remaining humble. The people adored him for his honest heroism. His best friend was one of the king’s sons, and they loved each other like brothers.
Unfortunately, favor with the king didn’t last long after he saw how the young warrior was praised. He was rising in rank, becoming a political figure, a war hero in increasing importance by the day. His wit and strength were both widely known — both incensed and frightened the king. So he started making plans to get rid of the young conqueror.
It was an arrow that saved him, shot in his direction by a similar young man with tears in his eyes, a corrupt army on his side, a father who was believed to be inhabited by a demon, and a truth he knew would separate him from his best friend forever. Loyal. Brave. Merciful. And torn apart by the choice. He shot an arrow at his friend to save him.
It landed a few feet away in the ground next to the man’s hiding place. The archer told the boy with him to go farther to find it. And David knew he would have to flee.
Johnathan is a common model of an amazing friend. He isn’t the only great friend in the Word of God — what with Paul and Timothy, Ruth and Naomi, Lazarus and Jesus, Elijah and Elisha — even David aside from this instance has at least five other stories about him in which a friend showed him undying loyalty.
And over all of those, God consistently displayed His loyalty to them. Lives have been saved, tears sopped up, people encouraged and clinging to each other at the point of death all because of a love that exists between friends.
Yet so easily, we dismiss friendship as a casual act of pleasure.
Betrayal
Think of the amount of times people have been betrayed. Even in the Bible there seem to be more betrayals than friendships.
Lucifer betrayed God and became Satan. Judas betrayed Jesus and handed him over to torcherers. God turned his back on Jesus — a betrayal of everything the world had previously known that literally ripped the fabric of all that separated us from Him. All of those we easily remember — but the whole story from beginning to end (and beyond) is full of betrayals in between.
From the beginning, the value of friendship was greater than gold — the price as costly as blood.
It is amazing but again, it is not something we really think about.
Compared to all of those instances, friendship is truly vital. Amazing how a disagreement between just two people can change the course of a whole nation — but so can a friendship.
It takes more than just passive agreement — more than agreement at all — to be friends with someone. It takes gnawing. Sharpening. Each rough blemish rubbed off — corrected by the rough blemish of the other. For true friendship — an advocacy for eternity — each involved requires change.
Swords
Iron sharpens iron. Among the things that the Bible is full of, wisdom about trust is everywhere and friendship is seen as something much more life-altering than small talk.
‘Iron,’ and ‘sharp’ are not just adjectives —throughout the Word, both words hold a lot of weight. The Word of God is referred to as a weapon as sharp as a sword (Hebrews 4:12) many times — the strongest weapon that could even act as a shield in battle. Words are comparable to this valor, bearing the same strength of a shield and a weapon. Friendship is the same — but with even more power.
Swords are sharp — what else could you expect? When the passage in Proverbs referring to iron weapons was written, they were effective for all things from killing animals for food, to eliminating enemies in battle, to cutting trails through the wilderness. (Proverbs 27:17)
They did not provide sustenance on their own. Nor cut trails, nor defeat enemies. But they could protect, provide, and act as a tool when wielded properly. Nevertheless, a step always must incite before swords are good for anything, even in the best hands. They must be sharpened. Try as you may, it is hard to find much value in a dull sword — at least not the sort of value it was made for. Swords were made to be sharpened.
Iron
Iron that hasn’t been refined is weak. To be refined it must go into the fire — the Word says that God’s good and perfect judgment is that fire (Ps.2:6; Ps. 66:10-12;). After the fire, the metal sets and becomes strong. It is self-sufficient in a few ways, in some since of the word it has sharp edges — but it is still incredibly bulky. (1 Peter 1:7)
One can stay that way — bulky, strong, pointed, even somewhat effective all the while. But the blunt edges are crass and useless when it comes to tender situations, to tight fits, and battles surrounded on every side by enemies. The blacksmith, of course, could choose to eliminate our rough edges with a good pounding after a plunge into in His testing fire — sometimes he does. But most of the time? He deems us operable and waits for us to see that we need others.
We need sharpening. Sort of beautiful, isn’t it, that he allows us to make the decision to love each other — lets us lack so we can fulfill each other’s needs?
Iron easily gets rough. It layers and peels. Every now and again, even the best of tools require maintenance — whether with fire, oil, or other iron. Rough edges match up - that is what sharpens. In the Stone Age, iron was used to sharpen iron — both rough pieces cured gradually in the process. Both irons would lose some of their mass in the process, the harmful parts roughly removed. How much was lost to each — which one was sharpened the most — depended on the strength of the metal, how long it had been in the fire. Stronger metals were used to sharpen the weaker ones and the weaker ones, thrust back into the fire to later refine the stronger. A continual cycle of a deep sort of curing, followed by sharpening that happened on the outside.
Do you see the similarities? God’s love is both terrible and powerful. It burns us to our core, melting our strengths together so they become one — weakening us so we can be strong. Strength comes from His fire - the sustenance comes from His correction. But the correction of others is what makes swords go from merely strong to deadly — useful in many situations.
Requirement for Risk
Satan, in every great masterpiece of God’s, tries to point out disadvantages, make us think the darkness is true light. He tries to convince us that we don’t need good, real friends because real friends grind away at us — while purely pleasurable ones leave our blemishes peacefully unnoticed. But there is overwhelming power in allowing your roughness to refine others and allowing yourself to be refined.
If you play sports, you know this — your true friends push you. If you write, I sincerely hope you have someone telling you that your bad writing is horrible (and if this is poorly worded and doesn’t make sense, please comment your suggestions!). If you are alive, I pray that there is someone who chooses to love you and takes the risk of telling you when you have gotten out of hand.
It truly is a risk to be on the opposite side. Having true friendship means you are willing very early on to test it’s strength with honesty. I have said plenty of honest words too soon and it has caused hurt, so don’t make the mistake of honesty just for the sake of saying “well, at least I was honest.” But there is a balance that is crucial.
Ask and You SHALL Receive!
A good first step is asking others to be honest with you. Don’t make an argument for yourself and then tell them to be honest — you know that you are only asking them for pity when you do that. Just tell them your actual concerns, and ask if they notice them too. If you ask for honesty so specifically, it makes it hard for people to lie about what they truly think. Don’t ask for honesty and not give people a premise to show their opinion on.
When you specifically ask for it, you are inviting them into a real kind of friendship. They automatically know they can be honest with you, though they begin to suspect you will be with them too. Some people don’t like the conflict (which is totally understandable) so they still avoid honesty. But the best kind of friends are willing to take the risk. The best endure the conflict for the sake of something real.
Much of what I am saying stands as a reminder. I have not always had good friends, and I pray for patience for all who have that heavy lot. Over the past two years, God blessed me more than ever with people who are willing to step up and correct me when I am wrong. I ask for their honesty about even the deepest parts of my character and I have no doubt that those faithful few will point out my faults with wisdom and love.
I have spent the hard moments stumbling over my words while trying to be honest about my friend’s faults — it is easy to point out faults when they affect you, but immensely more easy to lie when a friend asks about their conduct with someone else. I have asked, still, for such corrections often and as such I expect myself to be honest when people ask me for help in that way. Honesty is always more appreciated than flattery. Flattery only leaves tears in the end.(Proverbs 28:23)
A Living Illustration
About six months ago, one of my writing friends and fellow bloggers reached out to me. I knew her in passing, we took classes together on Zoom, and I had been reading her content for over a year — but for about two months she continually reached out to me during some classes we were taking. She didn’t want anything from me — she just saw our similarities before I did and we talked for hours about our favorite things.
Now we are great friends and we talk nearly every day. She is the one who inspired me to start Goodstrong Words with her own blog, and she has been by my side helping me through the whole process!
Half of the songs on my playlist are from her recommendation (which means she has recommended over 50 songs, by the way!!) I have read books and watched movies because of her and vice versa (and she happened to give me the best brownie recipe ever last week so you could say we are on fairly good terms!)
Both of us ask for honesty, and neither are afraid to disagree. We proofread things for each other. We talk about our hard weeks and our good ones — and quote scripture as well as write our own encouragement for each other. That is iron on iron — fire, strength, and sharpening. Her grace has done a deal of refining on me.
I read through her blog often for inspiration because even her short pieces have more weight to me than quotes from famous authors.
In one of her first blog posts, she said this,
“I think community is really important. We were designed for friendships with other people, and God […] God just wants to have a relationship with me! I think it is really important to Him. More important than me going through the motions, doing what I feel like I am supposed to do and never really meaning any of it.”- Abby (LadyBluebird.me)
God created us for relationships, just like he created us as humans, and made lungs for us to breathe air and a heart that pumps blood throughout our body. It is one of the central things to our being — this need to be gnawed at, sharpened, and loved by other people — and to do the same for them.
Iron sharpening iron.
It is not an option if one truly wants to live. Don’t wait for friendship - give it.
“Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.”
Romans 12:9
