Sharpening Iron by Wendee
17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. ~ Prov. 27:17
1I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 2With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5One Lord, one faith, one baptism ~Eph 4:1-5
Recently, I’ve taken up HEMA sword-fighting lessons: I’m learning the rudiments of the English Basket Hilt sword. In drills, you’re expected to attack lightly, ward lightly, and counter-attack lightly; the point being not to fight, but to learn the right placement and response.
I attended the first two lessons with a female friend. Unfortunately for me, when I attacked lightly, my friend would slam down a defence and refuse to move her sword so that I couldn’t practise the counter-attack. When she attacked and I defended, she would hit as hard as she could in the counter-attack.
She didn’t care that by blocking and caging my sword, she wasn’t just preventing me from learning the steps, but was actively doing something that would result in her dis-arming and death if she was in a real fight. She wanted to fight to win against me, not to learn.
It didn’t help her, and it was absolutely no help to me. I left that second lesson frustrated and more than a little discouraged that I was so bad at something I’d wanted to learn for so long.
I didn’t realise how much of a hinderance her behaviour was until I was alone the next week, and paired with a young man of roughly the same reach as me. Unlike my friend, he attacked lightly, warded lightly, and didn’t try to prove how strong and fast he was. And, to my great surprise, it turned out that I could actually do this. My footwork improved, my recall of the attacks and wards immediately jumped a level, and I had a real chance to focus on the style of my attacks, not just the pattern.
As I thought about it later, it occurred to me that I often treat disagreements with my brothers and sisters in Christ the same way. I could engage gently; trying the back and forth of disagreement in order that we can both learn, both grow, both be encouraged to seek God further on the issue. But too often I’m fighting to win instead of to strengthen myself and the other person. Instead of encouraging someone else to be strong in Christ and becoming strong myself, I’m just trying to hit as hard as I can: to score points.
It doesn’t help me (what happens when I meet someone who can argue better than I can?) and it doesn’t help them (discouragement and frustration aren’t typically emotions that prompt people to seek further knowledge of God—or even further discussion).
We’re encouraged to strengthen one another, to sharpen one another; to submit to one another. We can’t do that when we’re fighting to win instead of building each other up in the search for God and the practise of rightly dividing His word. It’s good to pray for grace to learn to fight together instead of fighting against each other in earnest.