When To Stop Sharpening

Most everyone has heard or seen the scripture, "As iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another," Proverbs 27:17. This has become the icon for leadership lessons across the globe and cited during every men's event at church.

Anyone that has done any work with axes or knives understands that you can actually over-sharpen a tool. Abraham Lincoln understood the importance of a sharp axe by stating "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe". The point Abraham Lincoln was trying to make is that if I have a job to do, I shall prepare the tool first before I begin the job. By preparing the tool the job will be that much easier.

The problem we are encountering today is that we continue to sharpen the tool and never put it to work. The "tool" keeps coming back to the owner asking to be sharpened but has never been dulled by the job! If you continue to sharpen an axe over and over again you will have a razor sharp edge but the moment it strikes a chunk of hardened wood the metal will break and bend because you have created an edge that was not meant for the work. If you wanted to create a 3 pound razor with a 3 foot handle to shave your face that would be one thing but I have not seen many axes hanging in the razor isle at the department stores. The axe is designed to split wood or cut down trees so it must be honed for this task.

Peter Drucker says it best, "The characteristic of a good tool is that it enables the user to do a job without paying attention to the tool. If one spends much time sharpening his or her knife, one is either a poor tool user or in need of another knife." We get unwarranted satisfaction and take great pride in spending extra time equipping others all the while forgetting to encourage application of knowledge. We waste our time because we never hold them accountable for the work they are tasked with completing.

I wonder what would happen if we spent time like Abraham Lincoln did sharpening others with a defined purpose in mind. Before we ever sit down with someone during a mentoring session we would first line out the work to be done. We then take time to sharpen the blade and send them out to complete their work. After the work is completed they can come back to examine their blade see to it that it is sharpened again properly for the next task ahead. There should be a two pronged approach in life, sharpening those tools that have never been used and that of upkeep on a tool's edge that has been sharpened in the past but has some wear from being utilized daily.

Jesus practiced this exact model with His Disciples. He gave them instruction and sent them out into the world to do His work. Upon return He would make some adjustments and send them back out again. Just think of the consequences if He practiced the model we most often accept today of sharpening others over and over again without ever putting them to work. We would have had 12 really smart men in the world that never would have changed a thing. Most likely after Jesus's death they would have simply gone back to their life before they had met Him and we would have never known of Him.

Let's change the world and start sending others out with a purpose. Can we invest in only those that are willing to do the work? I don't own a tool that I have never used so I am not investing in people that have no intention of putting their talents to work. I choose to adopt the mentoring model of sharpen, work, sharpen, repeat. I also choose to find a mentor that expects the same from me. If we can't keep each other accountable the tree will continue to stand and die with a bunch of people sharpening axes around it. Some may even suffer from the falling debris.