Too Many Irons in the Fire

I had a restless night recently when my brain simply refused to shut down after I’d gone to bed. I have an “older house” with aging appliances, and the air conditioner had just died. (This is July, in Kansas—enough said.) Help was on the way, just not yet. I needed to make a phone call or two—but the telephone line wasn’t working right either. I had a project deadline to meet, and I felt anxious about that.

As I lay awake, wide-eyed, I remembered the old saying that I’d heard repeated many times by my busy parents. “You have too many irons in the fire.” Well, what does that mean anyway? The short answer is that one has too many things going at once, too many intentions to keep track of, and probably in the end something is not going to be done well or perhaps will fail altogether. Or, one loses sleep.

The saying goes back to the blacksmith’s trade. The smith or his assistant had to maintain good control of the bellows in order to increase the fire’s heat by adding the necessary air. He had to place the irons at just the right tempo, and he had to remove each when it was ready for its turn with anvil and hammer. “Too many irons in the fire” would mean an inefficient smith or one with an unskilled apprentice who wastes time and heat by not knowing what to do or precisely when to do it. The old methods have been replaced by modern forges and new tools and techniques, but we have retained for several hundred years the idea of “too many irons in the fire.”

Thinking about this, I calmed down and began to prioritize my worries. (If one is going to worry, really you shouldn’t try to do all of it at once!) I put the three major items in order of their importance to me, and decided what I would do about the top one first thing tomorrow. And then I went to sleep.

"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” Matthew 6:34 (Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.)

MaryMartha
All rights reserved.