Christian Living

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Love is a personal sharing in the destiny of another.
Paul Tournier (the meaning of persons).

“Thank you for the food, God is good, may He bless you”, whispered Ms Ethuuko Nang’ole whose emaciated body became the face of the famine ravaged Turkana regions of Kenya as a media team went back, two weeks after highlighting her plight, and gave her some food. Her child-like and unchanging trust in a God she had probably questioned and waited on as hunger ravaged through her land, was moving. There still remained in her the firm belief that indeed He was a good God and that it could only have been through Him that the media team came back a second time. This trust was later echoed by another resident Paul Edo who said, “Food is hard to come by, but God will help”.

My thoughts were drawn to how selfish we sometimes are as we admonish our Creator for His silence in our prayer requests, conveniently forgetting how much more He has granted us. A recent report gives statistics of 97% of the larger Turkana populace being dependent on relief food. This same report gives another grim picture of food meant for these same people lying in stores because of lack of transport! No wonder we remain skeptical of a leadership that fails to prioritize issues. The speeding convoys of sleek vehicles on our roads which ferry most of them leave us truly wondering why we need to be accompanied by so many people in our dispensation of God-given duties if these very people we claim to serve are unable to access even the little that trickles their way after we are done. Is relief food in stores is really meant for those it is purported to?

Some of us remain forgetful of blessings bestowed on us by God, sometimes myopic in our inability to bless those who help us in one way or another. “We are so happy you have come back with food for us. We will have something to eat for the next few days as we pray for the rains to come”, said one Ebulon to the newspaper crew. It was indeed humbling that in the midst of the all hunger, is the thought of thanksgiving; in the trickle food supplies, is the appreciation of benevolence and in the observation of failed rains is the declaration of continued intercession with God.

However, many are we that stand unhealthily bloated in our ingestion of blessings and prosperity, fists held tight in a callous spirit, shifty-eyed with desire for more, the cash tills in our minds running at neck-breaking speed as we look yet again for loopholes to acquire more; never stopping to appreciate our health and wealth; never remembering those whose pans remain empty nor praying for those that bless us with employment. And as if that were not enough, we fail to handle power with humility forgetting where it really comes from. In the book of John 19:11, Jesus tells Pilate “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above…”

Those involved in sharing of whatever food they have are to be commended for it is in this example that we learn what real love for another is; that it is in sharing in the destiny of another

And so as the semblance of life continues, those at the bottom of the food chain are left with only God to trust for mercies as the rest of us continue chasing the illusion of what this life really is.

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