The title of this post is a line taken from one of  my all time favorite songs. Its a song done by a Christian metal band called The Great Commission. Its based on Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Although the band is quoting the NLT translation which states it as “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” Either way, you get the point.But as I was doing research on the web about the verse and the context of it, I came across this quote on Yahoo! Answers “Sometimes I don’t think this proverb is a positive one. the sound of iron on iron is not a pleasant one…” And I was left thinking, “Dude, what?”.So lets take it apart a bit shall we?“Iron sharpens iron…” So what is the process that goes into actually doing this? Well after doing a bit of research I found this quote in the comment of this article. “In the sharpening of iron with iron, both change — the sharpener and the sharpenee, if you will.”That’s an interesting side I have never totally thought about. When friends grow spiritually together and continue to keep each other accountable its not a one sided growth. Its continually building up both of you in your faith. From previous glancing at this verse I had always taken it from a one sided perspective. For example, my friend Destin and I are constantly learning together. Technology wise, and spiritually. And when one of us corrects the other I usually see that as a “sharpening” of that person being corrected. But not only is it “sharpening” the person being corrected, its also “sharpening” the correcter. If we take that look through all of our relationships I think we’d see a lot more growth then we normally do. My dad is always telling me you can learn something from everyone, whether its something to do, or not to do. And I think this is a great example of that, as in not only should we be building others up and encouraging them, but we should look for what we can learn through that process.So in response to the “not being positive”, I think its a HUGE positive. Growing in our faith and maturing as a Christian is always positive in the long run. How we get there, isn’t always “positive” from our limited perspective at times, but God’s infinite wisdom is sometimes beyond our comprehension.As the Word of Life quiet time has taught me through the years, now that we’ve stated and looked at what the writer is telling us, how can I apply this to my life? Personally my goal is to look for a growing moment in all things, whether I’m the one being taught, corrected, etc. or whether I’m the one doing the teaching, correcting, etc.