Lighting matches and burning land in Indonesia may have saved some companies boatloads of money. But for pretty much everyone else, it cost a lot!

Imagine living in Indonesia as a farmer during the fires. Smoke blocks out the sun—not just for a few hours, but for weeks. You struggle to breathe. Your fruit trees have shriveled up. Your animals have been burned. How will you take care of your family now?

One sneaky little attitude has done a lot of harm through the Indonesian fires: greed. Have you ever felt greed? When greed fills you, you want something very badly for your own selfish gain. You want it so much you would even break the rules or hurt other people to get it. Greed can put blinders on people so that they no longer see the needs of others. Instead they just see the big, juicy thing they want.

The people who started the fires in Indonesia wanted more money. That meant they had to plant more oil palm trees. They wanted to harvest cooking oil from the trees. Then they planned to sell the oil to food companies. That would earn them more money. But something had to happen first. They had to clear jungle land in order to plant more palm trees. The quickest way to do that was by starting fires. In Indonesia, clearing land with fire is a big no-no. It is against the law for everyone except owners of the very smallest farms.

Indonesian officials say the total cost of the fires will be $9 billion to people who won’t gain anything from the sale of palm oil. God does not honor greed. The profits plantation owners may see now are not promised to last. Proverbs 28 says, “A greedy man stirs up strife, but the one who trusts in the Lord will be enriched.”