ISIAH 1.15

I love solitude. It is a love so strong I would pay a hefty price to be left alone to think. So last Saturday I happened to land on the chance of a life time. My brother having left to the village and my sister long gone to work, I stayed in bed, long enough to savor the delicacy of the silence and let the aroma of privacy waft past my nose. I jumped out of bed, shed the last garment I had on my body and prowled around the room, like the alpha lion making sure that it was alone in the lair.

I set about brushing the carpet but no sooner had I landed on my knees to start on the Sisyphean task than I heard a knock on the door. The footsteps I heard definitely meant that I had an entourage of people at my door.

“He is around!”

I froze. It was a female voice. The last time I had heard that phrase used was long ago when I was knee-deep in debt. You would start to look to the nearest corner for cover.

They knocked. I waited, may be it was a wrong door. The second knock was much firmer meaning they were sure it was the right door. So I frantically looked around and landed on a baggy pair basketball shorts (I don’t play the sport, it was a gift) and slipped into it, no time for a shirt and then I opened the door. The female voice was my neighbor's, with whom I have never exchanged a single word, not even a hello. She left soon as I had opened. Her companions on the other hand, they stayed. I instantly recognized the two gentlemen, they were the Jehovah’s Witness preachers who had got quite friendly with my brother. Once in a while they show up and preached to him, I had never ventured to reveal myself, I would casually stay in bed while they preached away, citing evidence from the bible when the occasion permitted.

“Johnpaul is not around. He left, I mean he went to the village and he won’t be back till may be Wednesday.” I was definitely not sounding welcoming. But they were men of God anyway so the stayed.

Well I got to know that one was Ukrainian, I could have guessed by his thick eastern European accent, the second was Ethiopian. They started doing their thing, preaching to me with that phony attempt all preachers usually make to seem friendly. I have always had some questions that I could not find answers to. So I guessed this missionary would offer some answers.

“Do you believe in predestination?” I asked.

“No!” his reply was too curt for a preacher.

“And why is that?”

“Well I have my own reasons.”

“Did you grow up as a Christian?” I asked.

“No. I did not. Back home, people are atheists. They do not teach religion so people grow up when they do not know about it.”

“So why did you choose to come to Africa while folks back home are more in need of salvation?” I asked. I was not giving him rest this one.

“Well, it is not because they did not want to listen to me. They are many of us, well so me I was sent to Africa.”

Perfect.

 I was at this moment that the preaching started to hook my attention in earnest.

“Do you think God listens to our prayers?” the preacher asked.

I told him I did believe He does. He then handed me the bible to read.

Isiah 1.15 “when you lift up your hands in prayer, I will not look. Though you offer many payers, I will not listen, for your hands are full of blood.”

Interesting.

“So imagine a battle field,” said I hoping to make sense of this quote, “there are two warring factions. Both have taken blood and shed some. They are all praying, who does He listen to and who does He let go?”

“The answer is no one!” the preacher said.

I was baffled. So what he was insinuating was that there is actually an ‘autopilot’, a situation when God just abandons all of us and aids none. In this case, all fate is in man’s hands. 

Now I imagined, what if God was to forsake us? What if he was to put the universe in autopilot and let the sleeping dogs lie?

The answer is America!

If you want to know what a godless nation looks like, look at America. Guns on the street, drugs, prostitution, robbery, murder, suicide. The worst situation of a godless nation is when men start to think fellow men are women. A godless nation is doomed. Has no peace and there is chaos anywhere. The first time I got to know that there were psychos and serial killers was in American movies. Read their literature, watch their movies and you will get to know what I am talking about.

I have heard about murdered judges and people who were shot for scratching cars, all in this our Uganda. There is a drug ‘cartel’ in my neighborhood and the ‘kifeesi’ group really rhymes with the crips and the bloods and the Crenshaw kings, American style gangs.
Is Uganda becoming a godless nation?