Am I Iron?

I'm on a church bus rolling down the old goat paths, er, interstates of Kentucky on my way to the Together for The Gospel (T4G) conference in Louisville, KY. I've never attended this before, but am looking forward to some solid teaching from some well known preachers I've followed for some time now. 

As I look around the bus and eaves drop on the multiple conversations Proverbs 27:17 runs through my head: Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. (ESV) Certainly not a profound, earth shattering thing to think about in this situation. We are mostly pastors from West Virginia and most of the conversation tends toward church life. 

However, what keeps coming up in my mind is this: am I iron? I look around this bus and I see a lot of heavy metal. Lots of ministry experience, but more than that a lot of life experience. This bus is full of men who have been there. A lot of these guys are on the frontier of following Christ, right on the front lines. They are most certainly iron. 

But am I? Are you? If someone rubbed up against me would they be sharpened? It's so easy to roll through life just trying to make it. Sometimes I think that's right where the Devil wants us, in that place where we are merely surviving.

If I am only looking to my own concerns, only desiring to make it, then I am not iron. I've softened myself. I can't sharpen someone and have much less of a chance of being sharpened myself. 

I think being iron takes work. It takes vulnerability. It takes seeking the good of others first. "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." Philippians 2:3, 4. 

Great opportunities are put in front of us to be iron, to sharpen and be sharpened. Let's have eyes and ears and heart for them.