Psalm 73, the Psalm of Asaph, is one of the most beautiful Psalms which tells us about the Wisdom and Justice of God.
The Psalmist begins by praising God for how good He is to the upright and to those who are clean of heart. But then he complains about how he lost balance in his judgment of God, because all around him it was the wicked who prosper; they suffer no pain and are healthy with no burdens of life. They are proud and violent and full of evil thoughts; they say things against God and even ask whether God has knowledge; but even in their wickedness and carefree life, their wealth and prosperity increase.
The Psalmist continues to lament on his poor conditions even though he kept his heart clean. He contemplated being like the wicked, and it was only when he entered the presence of the Most High, that he noticed how swiftly the wicked will end, and there he always sought counsel in the Lord God, accepting his sinfulness which was due to the bitterness in his heart and deeply wounded soul. He had failed to understand God; now he does, and he is ever determined to always be near God and make Him his refuge.
Africa, specifically, Black Africa, has been so religious with an entrenched Fear of God, and this has been going on for centuries, yet prosperity seems to elude us.
We are told of nations which have little or no reverence of God, yet they are prospering and among the first world countries. We are told we devote all our time praying to God without doing anything; relatively this is true. We should have prayed and worked together, but all the same we realise there is a Mighty God, a Supreme Being who is Lord over everything, seen and unseen.
To the West, we have very prosperous nations which still claim to believe in God, yet they have started doing things that God and nature frowns upon when modernism set in. This came with a departure from tradition and religion, which gradually worked into the thinking of some. God was questioned in many ways than one, and even denied by some. Man placed science above all, and miracles by God are not highlighted or even recognised at all. Down along the line, some people from these rich and powerful nations believe man has power over his body, and so in defiance to the instructions of God, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) were born and was becoming a force, determining the political and economic directions of many nations until the Covid-19 arrived.
Meanwhile and all along, poor Black Africans continued to pray and seek God’s Holy Face, and yet poverty seems to be growing faster than their faith in God.
To the East are some of the very advanced nations, rich and powerful as well, which do not believe in God at all. They also have their set of rules which in a way mock the God we serve. Caught in between the two, Black Africans continued doing what they know best, praying, praying and praying.
Fake pastors and prophets took advantage of this opportunity and set up their gold mine. If people will just sit there and seek God’s Face, they will be the medium between the Almighty and these poor wretched vulnerable people. And one thing, they will collect the offerings of gifts and cash here on earth, on behalf of God. And invest them directly for the selfish benefit to the envy of the high and mighty in society and challenging the world’s top celebrities, people they call unholy people of the world.
On the other side of the equation, fake leaders at all levels of the Black African society decided to dry cassava while the sun shines and corruption set in. The administratively principled Western and Eastern nations saw corruption as a tool to rip off Black African nations, and so sent their businessmen, investors and politicians to come to make themselves useful by corrupting our leaders to be able to strike a good deal for them where they can gain, 90-10 in their favour. The sort of corruption they introduced into our leadership, from political, traditional and public/civil servant levels, can attract long terms in jail with heavy fines, or in some cases, the death penalty in their own countries.
And we continued to pray to God while our people sent lots of money to banks abroad. The West and the East receive them, and in turn, loaned them to us at interest rates that will make us forever poor. China, not to be outdone, also came in and descended on our eco-system to steal our minerals and natural resources and desecrate nature, resulting in our fields becoming infertile and our water bodies getting poisoned. The Chinese then loan us our money they got from our gold and other products they stole, and made sure we cannot pay back and get us colonised for defaulting.
One major problem facing our development is the disunity among us at the national and continental levels. The West indoctrinated us to accept any person who does not belong to our tribe or nation as an inferior and barbaric person. This made us hate others who do not belong to us and still feel proud that we are Africans.
After dividing us from our own kinsmen and creating what they called nations for us, the West made sure that they entrenched disunity into whatever unions we have, that are called countries. In Nigeria, before the White man left, they placed the powerful and more resourceful South under the less endowed North, and that union is still literally unstable, resulting in a bloody civil war.
In Ghana, almost all ethnic groups are pitched against each other because that is what the White man wanted it to be. The Kusasis and the Mamprusis are at each other’s throats, because the British felt there was no need of reversing an age old order. Down South, the British officially said that the people of Akuse, who were Osudokus, were too primitive to administer themselves, and so placed them under the Krobos. And, to date, the process has not been reversed.
To this day, we see the non-African to be the only solution to our problems, and we ignore the other African. So, as it is, if we want to know how to prepare eba and agusi strew or ampesi and abomo stew, we would rather go to a catering school in the USA, Canada or the UK to be taught by Whites, instead of going to Nigeria and Ghana. We will rather go to the boutiques in Europe to get African wear, and even prefer a Chinese printed kente cloth to a real woven one from Bonwire, Asante.
We believe so much in the non-African and seriously look down upon ourselves, feeling proud we can be heard saying“Black man, Black sense” when describing how low we think; and we continued to pray, asking God when we will also be like the Whites and other non-Africans. Sometimes we act as if we are disappointed in God and a bit angry, praying like the Psalmist: “Is it in vain we have kept our hearts clean, washed our hands in innocence? For we are afflicted day after day, chastised every morning.” (Psalm 73: 13-14).
We think the solutions to our problems are to wipe out the other ethnic group or Black nation from the surface of the Earth, as Black South Africans have instilled some festival called Xenophobic Attacks Against Black Non-South Africans into their otherwise rich culture.
That Black Africans are always portrayed as barbaric people was well exhibited in the Walt Disney Classics “The Lion King.” Any excuse is good enough to get at each other and tear ourselves into pieces, and this was depicted in that cartoon.
The Whiteman we always adore looks down upon us regarding us as descendants of Ham, who are cursed forever. But centuries after the supposedly dark-skinned Ham was cursed (Genesis 9: 18-29), there were powerful kingdoms and empires in Africa which superseded everything in the then Europe. To this day, the richest man to ever walk the Earth is the Black West African emperor of Ancient Mali, Mansa Musah, who was worth over $400 billion in today’s terms.
The West and the Asians have accepted that we are a bubble that was going to burst, and everything Black Africa was going to implode, then the final scramble for the continent will take place.
This was where God came in and may have allowed Covid-19 into the world order. With this pandemic, we all see that, after all, we can survive without the West, the Arabs, the Indians and the Chinese. It has been revealed to us how God set them on a “slippery road and hurl them down to ruin” (Psalm 73: 18); for who could have thought that a great nation like Great Britain would have no idea about how to tackle or even manage this pandemic? And what about the powerful United States of America, which is still in the woods as to what to do in such a predicament. Nations like France, Italy, Spain, Canada and others have been getting their fair share of bashing from this pandemic.
Meanwhile, in Africa, after over three months since the disease set foot here, the continent as a whole, as at 10:30 Hrs GMT, on Monday May 25, 2020, recorded 111,731 cases, with only 3,355 deaths and 44,812 recoveries as compared to Great Britain with 259,599 cases, 36,793 deaths and only 780 recoveries, and the USA recording 1,686,436 cases, 99,300 deaths and 451,702 recoveries.
Comparatively, Africa’s position is 2.02% of the global Covid-19 cases, with 2.22% of all active cases; 0.97% of all death cases, and 1.94% of all recovered cases in the world.
So if it is not the Hand of God at work, what is Africa doing right that the rest of the advanced world is doing wrong? And these are people who regard us as primitive and uncivilised, that when we go seeking jobs or some other placements in their countries, they will first find out if we are better than their best before they consider us good enough for any appointment.
While we cannot say that we are out of the woods yet with this pandemic; what with the gradual increases in cases week by week, but all the same, the poorer, less developed and backward Africa has fared much better than the advanced nations. Out of the fifty-four nations, forty-two have recorded less than fifty deaths, twenty-seven, less than ten deaths, and eight nations are yet to record any death at all, with countries like Eritrea and Seychelles having all active cases now fully recovered.
Africa must be special in the sight of the Lord as He takes hold of our right hand ….and…none besides Him, delights us on Earth (Psalm 73: 23b & 25b).
Author: Hon Daniel Dugan
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s editorial stance
The post Covid-19 Matters: The Bright Side of Darkness (4a) Africa in Psalm 73: The Trial of the Just (1) appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
Read Full Story
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
LinkedIn
RSS