“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”
Proverbs 27:17

There are people in life who make everything very easy. They agree with us, they nod in all the right places and they tell us what we want to hear.

And then there are the other ones. The ones who challenge us, who ask awkward questions, who make us explain why we believe what we believe and who occasionally make us want to bang our heads against a convenient wall. Those people can be exhausting, but they can also be incredibly valuable.

Iron doesn’t sharpen iron by sitting politely next to it. There has to be contact. There has to be resistance. There has to be friction.

Over the last year I’ve had some wonderful conversations with my vicar, Ravi, about God, faith, the Church, the universe, films, theatre and pretty much everything in between. We haven’t always agreed. Sometimes I’ve gone away and thought about something he’s said for days. Sometimes I’ve argued my corner. Sometimes he’s asked a deceptively simple question that has made my scattered brain rearrange everything it thought it knew.

Today Ravi led his last Communion service with us before moving on to his next adventure, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the influence people can have on our lives without necessarily realising it at the time. Ravi opened a door for me, but importantly, he never told me what I should find on the other side of it. He challenged me, questioned me, occasionally confused the hell out of me, and gave me the space to work things out for myself. At no point did he try to “convert” me. He took my challenges seriously and then held the space I needed to see God for myself.

And I think that’s important. Faith shouldn’t be so fragile that it can’t withstand questions. In fact, perhaps questioning is part of how it grows.

The people who sharpen us aren’t necessarily the people who agree with us but that doesn’t mean every disagreement is useful. Cruelty isn’t sharpening. Belittling someone isn’t sharpening. Trying to win an argument simply for the pleasure of being right isn’t sharpening. But loving challenge? That can change us.

My faith has changed over the years, especially the seismic shift recently. I suspect it will continue to evolve and grow. The more I learn, the more I realise how much I don’t know. I’m becoming increasingly comfortable with that, it’s how faith works.

Perhaps God places people in our lives who smooth some of our rough edges and sharpen others; people who challenge us because they see something in us worth challenging.

There may occasionally be sparks, but perhaps that’s part of the process.

So today I’m grateful for Ravi, and for all the people who have challenged me enough to make me grow.

And when someone challenges me in the future, I’m going to try to ask myself:

Is this wearing me down… or is it sharpening me?

-Laura