Last week, the Tharaka Nithi Governor, Muthomi Njuki made a very terse statement whose underlying meaning may have skipped the minds of the intended audience. While giving a directive for the closure of all the bars among other businesses until the Covid-19 is controlled in the country, the governor literally lamented about why making merry was considered more important than attending church service.
“If some churches have been closed down how can bars be open up to now? I’m warning especially those with bars and restaurants not to think we are not watching them. Some licenses will be taken away from this evening. Other counties have done the same so let’s stay at home for a while for our own safety,” said the governor.
We are a very religious society yet we have made all sorts of complaints over the losses incurred due to the curfew yet hardly anyone has considered this very crucial part of our fight against this global threat -repentance.
Miraa producers and traders have puked all the bile on some governors for banning the sale of their mild stimulant to curb the spread of coronavirus. Why not revisit their traditional ways of appeasing the gods to rid them of the calamities that have continuously hit our country in the recent past including coronavirus rather than blaming other counties for taking precautionary actions, one wonders.
A bar owner in Nyandarua was reported to have been arrested for relocating beer to his house, saying that he was working from home. All his clients had migrated to the bar owners’ house. Meanwhile, some Kenyans, after the ban on partying in clubs was effected, moved to tea zones in Kiambu and set up roadside liquor parties.
True leaders are anointed by God. Before the ban on miraa selling in Isiolo the County, Governor Dr. Mohammed Kuti advised miraa chewers to wash the stimulant in hot water, which never went down well with the consumers who said this would ‘kill the steam’. The traders should have seen the ban coming because if the twigs could not be washed, then what is the guarantee that the product is hygienic?
During national prayer day against the Covid-19 outbreak held on Saturday March 21 2020 President Uhuru Kenyatta said even scientists need God.
“Today is not my day but our day as a nation to seek God’s forgiveness for anything that we may have done wrong individually and collectively as a nation, and seek his favour on the challenges we are facing,” President Kenyatta said.
Uganda also held prayers. Other countries such as Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Brazil and New Zealand held national prayers the following day.
But even as we continue praying, our emotional distress should not limit us from seeing beyond the present catastrophe and understand that these processes might actually serve a purpose that enables complex life to exist in the first place or draw more people closer to God.
When things are perfect, no one seeks help from the doctor. It’s only when we’re in pain, when our body is afflicted by a sickness or disease that we seek help. Same is true with God. When things are going great, money is flowing, the house is functional, the family is healthy, it’s so easy for us to sit back and enjoy life without so much as thinking about God at all. But when a loved one dies, when we face our own mortality, when we lose a job or a house, when we witness massive loss of life in a natural disaster, only then do we start asking bigger questions about life and God, and seek help.
How many people with Christian names have a Bible today? How do we expect to understand God’s will without reading His word? There are very many sects in the world today that mislead their flock and the only way to shelve ourselves from them is by reading the Holy Bible. If we are literate, why shouldn’t we read the Bible? It is better to buy the Bible and just keep it in our rooms without even reading rather than always scramble to borrow one anytime we wish to confirm what we hear from preachers either in churches or through media platforms.
Kimani Ng’ang’a Maruge who holds the Guinness World Record for being the oldest person to start primary school said his drive was to learn to read the Bible. Maruge said that the government’s announcement of universal and free elementary education in 2003 prompted him to enrol. He was later baptized at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Kariobangi and took a Christian name, Stephen while on a wheelchair.
If Maruge could enroll into primary school at the age of 84 to enable him read the Holy Scriptures why would majority of us who became literate long before our teenage years fail to read the Bible and then feign prayers when calamity hits us? It is high time for most of us to end hypocrisy and start to walk the talk.
By David Mutwiri
