Life is like a bowl of peanuts.

Here is a Devotional for you today, its a little longer than normal, but still is a great reminder. Praying for you guys today.

At eighty years young, it was getting harder for Walter to take care of himself so his family decided that a nursing home for the aged would be the best place for him.

Of course the old man rejected the idea, but eventually he was convinced that it was the right thing to do. On his first day at the home, he spent most of his time laying in bed reflecting on life, feeling lonely. A while later, an orderly stopped by to see how Walter's first day was going.

"How you doing today?" she asked the old man, "First day I see?" Walter nodded.

In no time the two began talking up a storm. As the conversation began to drag on, the orderly was eyeing the room filled with fresh flowers, cards and balloons from friends and relatives. She noticed a bowl full of peanuts sitting on top of the table next to the bed, and helped herself to a handful.

As the two continued to converse with each other, the orderly kept eating more helpings of the peanuts. She looked at her watch and noticed that nearly 2 hours had passed and said,

"My goodness, the time has gone by quickly. I have to tend to other people here too."

"That's okay." Walter replied, "I feel so much better being able to talk to someone." Looking into the bowl the orderly said, "I feel awful! I ate almost all of your peanuts!"

"That's okay," responded Walter, "Ever since I got these false teeth, all I could do was suck the chocolate off of them anyhow."

Life is not always as it seems, wouldn't you agree? It was Forrest Gump who was fond of saying that "life is like a box of chocolates", but I would observe that life is probably a lot more like the bowl of peanuts mentioned in the story above.

How so?

Oftentimes we happily help ourselves to the pleasures of life without knowing where they came from. Take for example the orderly in our story. By all appearances the peanuts looked normal enough, so she unquestioningly decided to meet her need by taking and eating. It was just a bit too late for her when the truth came out about the lacquered legumes.

Sorta reminds me of a story from the Bible involving our original parents that went down like this:

The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal GOD had made. He spoke to the Woman:

"Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?"

The Woman said to the serpent, "Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It's only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, "Don't eat from it; don't even touch it or you'll die.'"

The serpent told the Woman, "You won't die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you'll see what's really going on. You'll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil."

When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it--she'd know everything!--she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate. Immediately the two of them did "see what's really going on"--saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves. (Genesis 3:1-7)

Eve gave into the temptation to act on an impulse without asking the right questions- and humanity has been paying the price ever since.

What about you? Have you ever considered the notion that Satan has a bowl of putrid peanuts out on the table of life for you? It can come in the form of friendships that seem harmless enough- but if you decide to pursue them, you will most certainly end up with regrets. Or perhaps your weakness is unforgiveness. You delight in continually making your offenders pay by treating them coldly. Just remember that each time you do that, you are chomping down on another tainted nut.

Then there are others who are charmed by the allure of popularity. Certain choices are made and morality is comprised for the elusive promise of being 'the stuff' on campus or at work.

Don't forget about the internet. Just a few clicks away from the supposed 'harmless' images that will be permanently stored away in your brain for future use by the devil...not to mentioned the warped view you will develop regarding human beings made in the image of God.

There are so many more wrong kinds of bowls out there, and I don't have room on the table to mention them all. But do you want the cure for peanut gulping?

Here you go:

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romans 12:1-2)

Think twice before taking that next bite out of life, you may just save yourself from a mouthful of misery.