busyness – Page 2

Not Just a Pretty Stack of Folders

November 4, 2015

I just made a trip to the office supply store for a new set of folders and two boxes of my favorite ballpoint pens. Don’t they just make you want to get busy and organize something? I love office and school supplies. They evoke the feeling of that first day of school every year during childhood when I would carry in a big bag of brand-new pencils, notebooks, rulers, paste, and other goodies, and then arrange them neatly in my new desk. (Never mind how the inside of the desk came to look after a few weeks.)

The reason for this most recent purchase was the need to corral the mounting stack of papers that keeps growing on my work table. Tired of riffling through piles, muttering, “I thought I put it right here,” I decided to whip those papers into order by categorizing them into labeled folders. I am aware that like the supplies in my childhood school desk, everything won’t stay put in these folders. There will be escapees, strewn hither and yon about the house.

No matter how foolproof my system may seem, when life happens, not every piece of paper will make it to its folder. And then there will be all those bits and pieces that don’t quite belong anywhere and up in the folder labeled “miscellaneous,” which over time will become fat and hard to find things in.

But the thought that hit me as I took the new supplies out of the bag and stacked them on the table was that no matter how appealing they look, they’re not doing a thing for me unless I unwrap them and put them to use. They have no value until I do something with them.

So it is with the many gifts God has give us – talent, money, time, resources, and information, as well as spiritual gifts. They’re not meant to be put up on a shelf and admired. He intended us to use them, and to enjoy using them to bless others. He says, “As each has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). So let’s be aware of the blessings God has given us and look for ways to pass the blessings on to others.

Irons in the Fire

September 9, 2015

A few summers ago my sister and I took our grandkids to Living History Farms in Iowa to see how people lived more than a hundred years ago. At the blacksmith shop, as they watched the “smithy,” one of them got to hold an iron in the fire until it turned red hot. Then the smithy pulled the iron out and hammered the hot metal into shape. When the metal cooled and became too brittle to work with, back into the fire it went.

A blacksmith working on one iron at a time, pulling it out, working on it, plunging it back in, and waiting for it to heat up again, would not accomplish much in a day. So he works on several pieces at a time, hammering on one while the others are heating. However, the metal can’t be left in the forge too long or it will lose its shape. A good blacksmith knows just how many pieces of work he can manage at a time.

That’s where we get the phrase “too many irons in the fire.” What an apt description of our lives when we try to juggle too many projects at once and end up ruining one thing while hurrying to “strike while the iron is hot” with another. We run hither and yon, taking out one task to work on, plunging another into the fire, and not doing any of them as well as we had planned to.

When I find myself in this situation, I have learned I simply must stop and ask God which irons need to be removed from the fire to save for another day – or eliminated altogether. In Mark 4:19 Jesus warns us that the cares of this world can choke the Word of God that has been planted and is trying to grow in our heart. Too many projects and activities, no matter how good they may be, will stunt our spiritual growth.

God tells us to “be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). If we don’t have time to do this, we have too many irons in the fire. I want to be like Jesus, who “has done all things well” (Mark 7:37).

I posted this several years ago, and when I ran across it recently, I realized that it is still a good word, so I am sharing it again. I hope you find it helpful.