Give God a break from man made madness

This week, two hippopotamuses emerged from the far end of the East African Sea to announce to those ashore that the crocodile was ill; in a church not far away, a priest asked the congregation to submit their prayer requests to God and one read, ‘oh Lord, give us good roads.’ As the priest reviewed the prayer requests for submission, he found the good road request to the Lord; he then asked for the owner of the prayer request; a man wearing a green t-shirt with a picture of a local politician, stood up the priest asked him to walk up to the pulpit. “This, dear brother, is a request I won’t take to the Lord. But, I will duly hand it over to your area local government leader, here present,” he announced before walking down to a potbellied man seated on the front pew and handed over the man’s prayer request for good roads. A few weeks ago, the same local area politician was accused of embezzling 400 million in that country’s currency, money that was meant to build a road; he was facing the threat of losing his council seat and was in church to pray to God, perhaps, to save him from impending loss. Sometimes I pity God. Not that I should, for He’s an all-powerful being, so the word says. But, that He has to listen to every plea from earth, every Sunday is something nonplussing. That is why I want to laud the priest for saving the Lord from an issue a man in the congregation had not only the means but also the responsibility to address. My friends Collins Mwai and Ntare Rwabugiri may disagree but, there is God. And in all the misery that goes on in our world today, the Lord’s intervention could truly have a positive effect but we can’t ignore the fact that most of our misery is self-inflicted by man and only man can devise solutions. American rapper and actor Jayceon Terrell Taylor, better known by his stage name The Game, said in one of his rap hits, ‘ one thing about us humans, (hey), we kill.’ There is a long history of men killing men and those gathered for the dead men’s funerals cry to God asking for mercy; but the chain of criminality is in a way that, there is a man that paid another man to pull the trigger of the gun that released the bullet that shot the man dead. The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi is a classic case of where good men can fight and defeat evil men; but not without loss; the death of over a million lives where church wasn’t even an option for the persecuted, for some of God’s representatives on earth were commanding the killings. Most of East Africa’s ongoing political turbulence is solely man made madness and those calling on God to intervene should give the creator a break from our own self-inflicted conflicts. In the country of my origin, Uganda, the nation is polarized on whether or not to change a clause in the current constitution to allow 75-year old nationals to vie for the Presidency. In Kenya, the untimely and shocking resignation of Roselyn Akombe, as commissioner, exposed, as heavily divided the national electoral commission which everyone expects to take the country through a fresh presidential election, on Thursday. Like the Ugandan legislator, Akombe is another hippo that emerged from the IEBC Sea to announce that the alligator is too ill to conduct an exercise that will make or break the stability of East Africa’s economic backbone. The IEBC Chairperson has since validated her statement. In all this man made madness, I struggle to see how God can help. The people asked God for leaders, the request was granted, in one way or another. It is time for the leaders to lead in the truest sense of the word. The Kenyan affair, for instance, lawyers not God, hold the key to uniting the country behind one purpose of unity and peace. Every TV programme has lawyer dominated panels ‘telling Kenyans for free what is legal and illegal. On one side is a group of lawyers making a strong argument on why Thursday’s election can’t be held; on the other is another set of lawyers mounting a counter-argument on why and how the election on Thursday can be held. The two arguments are the fuel on which the two bitter political parties vying for the presidency are dangerously driving, in the process running-over Kenyan political pedestrians. Now, Geostorm is a fantasy science film currently showing at Century Cinema. I watched it Friday night and one conclusion I went away with was; while man is capable of the worst form of evil, he’s also capable of stopping the worst form of evil, albeit at a substantial cost. Let’s give God a break. The views expressed in this article are of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Times.

Opinions

Give God a break from man made madness