Feeling dull?

Whether you are sharpening your best knife to carve the family roast or honing an axe to cut firewood to keep you warm in winter the point is to make the best point you can.  There is a real skill in getting the blade’s point so thin that it could cut a sheet of paper when it is held vertically or sharp enough to shave with.  The aim of sharpening is to remove the dull edge, burrs and imperfections and to fashion the steel into a precise point.  Sometimes when the blade is very blunt a grinder needs to be used and red hot sparks fly.  Then a sharpening stone can be used to further refine the steel removing the lumps and bumps of the course griding wheel.  To finish it off a sharpening steel is used to provide the smooth edge making the tool as sharp as can be.  The proverb below is showing us the value of friends helping each other to be the very best that they can be by pointing out and addressing things in our life that are stopping us from being as effective, sharp and useful as we can be.  Whether sparks fly or there is only a small amount of friction it is not comfortable when our flaws and imperfections are exposed.  The point though is not just to point out problems, which some people enjoy doing, but to provide advice, guidance, love and encouragement to each other. 

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
Proverbs 27:17 NLT

http://bible.com/116/pro.27.17.NLT