From Max Lucado’s book ‘Cure for the Common Life:’ (Chapter 2: ‘Unpack Your Bag—He has filled them with skill. [Exodus 35:35])
Endless cotton crops had sucked the nutrients out of Southern soil. Post—Civil War farmers faced scorched land and scrawny crops. George Washington Carver, a professor at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, offered a solution. Change crops and restore nitrogen and fertility to the soil. Grow sweet potatoes, cowpeas, soybeans, and, most of all peanuts. But Carver couldn’t convince the farmers.
It took the boll weevil to do that. Out of Mexico they swarmed, through Texas, into Louisiana and Mississippi. By 1915 the cotton-consuming bug had reached Alabama. Carver saw the plague as an opportunity. “Burn off your infested cotton,” he pleaded, “and plant peanuts.” But who would buy them?
An elderly widow knocked on Carvers door. After planting and harvesting peanuts, she had hundreds of pounds left over. She was not alone. Carver discovered barns and storehouses piled high with peanuts. They were rotting in the fields for lack of a market.
Years later he recalled how he retreated to his favorite spot in the woods, seeking God’s wisdom. “Oh, Mister Creator,” he cried out, “why did you make this universe?”
And the Creator answered, “You want to know too much for that little mind of yours. Ask me something more your size.”
So I said, “Dear Mister Creator, tell me what man was made for.” Again He spoke to me and said, “Little man, you are still asking for more than you can handle. Cut down the extent of your request and improve the intent.”
Then I asked my question. “Mister Creator, why did you make the peanut?”
“That’s better,” the Lord said.
Working day and night, Carver tore apart the peanut and unlocked the chemical magic that would turn loss into profit. In less than five years, peanut production turned his Alabama county into one of the wealthiest sections of the state. During his lifetime, Carver extracted more than three hundred products from the peanut. . . .
It’s all about finding your peanut, the tailor made-task that honors God, helps others, and thrills you. ~ Max Lucado, Cure for the Common Life (W Publishing Group, a Division of Thomas Publishing, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1979, 1980, 1982) 11-12
