The Problem With The Peanuts

As most of you know, I come from South Georgia. Peanut country. I've been around 'em all my life. Sold boiled peanuts as a boy to earn money for my school clothes. Loved doing it. Love peanuts, especially boiled. Down there, we know how to boil 'em right. Get 'em when they're green. Eat 'em up.

Blakely, the home of the suspected processing plant in the peanut salmonella outbreak, is less than an hour from my hometown. This problem could devastate the entire town. Early County is practically in mourning.

The problem with the peanuts is not really a problem with the peanuts. I can tell you from first-hand experience that there are no inherently bad peanuts. They are all quiet, very docile.

The problem with the peanuts is a problem with people. Someone has gotten lazy, or greedy, or both. And everyone is seeking to say, "It's not my fault."

The State has blamed the plant. The plant has said they did everything the State required them to do so it must be the State's fault.

The Feds have blamed the State and the plant and now seem to be blaming each other because back in September, something happened with some of these peanuts on a shipment that Canada refused and tried to send back but the FDA (a federal agency) would not let the peanuts back in the US and that should have jump-started an investigation into what was wrong with the peanuts.

Does this sound convoluted and complicated?

Covering up errors always is.

Perhaps somebody did not want to take responsibility for the losses that would be incurred if the peanuts were condemned and destroyed.

Perhaps someone did not want to take responsibility for the costs of fixing all the building deficiencies we read about.

Perhaps some State or Federal inspector was just too tired or too disinterested to follow through on what they had discovered.

There's plenty of reason to believe that something like this will be at the root of this salmonella outbreak because there are plenty of people trying to put the blame on someone else.

Take it from me, the root problem is sin. When Adam first sinned for himself and the rest of us, he opened the door for laziness instead of God's intended productivity.

That same door was opened for greed, the desire for easy money rather than God's intended work ethic whereby a man was rewarded for honoring God with everything he put his hands to and then enjoying the fruits of his honest labor.

The problem with the peanuts is the same problem with anything else that is wrong in this world. We are a fallen, sinful people very much in need of God's salvation.

If Man would focus on honoring God with the same energy he uses trying to gain ease and comfort and riches for himself, it would be a different world.

How about you? Where's your focus today? What are you pursuing? God's perfect will or your own aims and goals?

It matters, you know? Life is so much more than peanuts.

Pray for revival, please.

In His Love
Walter