The ones from here are absolutely and definitively out of this world. Full of religious insinuation, but many are mostly religious claptrap. Harsh? Well, try this.
GOD PUNISH THE DEVIL.
All words written in bold capitals, the second word is in bold red.
Now tell me, what is God punishing the devil is got to do with anyone? Indeed, does God punish the devil? I don’t know. Anyone who does, let me know the answer to that question. Please.
Why would anyone put such a sticker on their car bumper anyway? Well, it beats me also but I think I can guestimate. I figure it’s something to do with this. Hmm: our religious belief that the devil is our greatest enemy. So far so good. Then, the further belief that this devil is the cause of most if not all of your woes. Then the further, further belief that this devil has colluded with other human beings to frustrate your life. So, God should punish the devil for imposing on your territory.
So you go round announcing to everyone you meet that God should punish the devil.
Never mind that God is omniscient, omnipotent, kind, gracious, loving. The God asking all those who are weary come to Him so that He can give them rest. His mercy is everlasting, as is His love.
Why not focus on worshiping Him in obedience to His Word? Why not focus on the greatness of the love of this God as opposed to asking Him to punish the devil? Why not?
GOD PASS THEM.
The other bumper sticker that caught my attention.
Okay – I actually think everyone of west African descent would understand this statement. Never mind the grammer.
But, for all others, what the sticker is saying is this: God is omniscient and omnipotent. Amen to that.
And, the bumper goes on in implication, that being the case, God is greater than all those pursuing me for evil. Amen to that also.
Come to think of it, that bumper sticker is actually apt, deep and extra.
Selah.
Monday 23 February 2009
Tuesday 10 February 2009
Quest
On his neighbour being irresponsible
For some odd reason over the past few days my thoughts have been towards a statement our driver in Sierra Leone made some years ago. Bless him. I can’t quite recall what started the conversation – it was probably the usual case of the driver cutting into the private conversation of his passengers and giving his own, though unwarranted, insights to whatever topic we were discussing.
On this particular occasion though, I must say I was engaged by what he had to say. His penny’s worth on this occasion was that one of his neighbours was being irresponsible and above all was seriously committing a sin against God. Why so?
He explained that the man was unemployed, had been so for a long while and was actually not actively looking for work. Yet the man had over ten young children and one of his wives had just given birth yet again. How would he look after the new baby, let alone the baby’s siblings?
Well, you many think that was not a profound statement but in a country and indeed a continent where to have children and plenty of them, regardless of your ability (financial, emotional, physical and otherwise) to look after and take care of them, is regarded as a raison etre of existence, it was a profound statement – particularly coming from a barely literate individual.
I stopped in my tracks
Here was a man, probably not much older than me, in his 30s but looking at least twice that age because of the effects of war and abject poverty, demonstrating agility of thought, mind and purpose. He himself had lost his two children at the hands of RUF rebels during the war. Post-conflict, he adopted a little girl orphaned by the war, and, by the grace of God, birthed his own biological daughter some years after. He considered his two children truly the apple of his eye.
There was not a day that would go by that he would not buy something on the road for his children – be it a loaf of bread, sweets or a toy. Those kids were his delight.
On bricks and mortar and the corrugated iron roofing sheets
I pondered the difference between this barely literate driver and his neighbour whose story he had told me. Why was one so apparently different from the other even though their background in economic status and social class were apparently almost exactly the same? I recalled that the driver had told us that he had not really gone to school. He learnt to drive and had worked as a driver all his life. And work hard and consistently he did. Gathered enough money to ‘hire’ a banged up 1970s Mercedes from someone and used that as his private taxi hire, paying a monthly fee to the owner of the car. From his earnings he was building a home and a roof over the head of his family. Three rooms. He had literally built that home with his own hands and the support of a few others. He took one of my colleagues to see the home once. Bricks and mortar with corrugated iron roofing sheets covering the bricks.
But it was a home. Our driver was also paying for the school fees of his children – at a Government assisted school – and was looking forward to their future, despite the precariousness of the nation state that he resided in.
Are all born equal?
Then I wondered how he could be so responsible and his neighbour apparently not. I wondered if all indeed are born equal. I wondered whether really we could say that his neighbour is just plain lazy and irresponsible, or might it just be the case that life had dealt him a blow and he did not know how to recover? I really wondered.
I must say that a constant thought that passes through my mind when I come into contact with people who are so apparently poor and living below the poverty line is to wonder ‘what if that were me?’ In the same breath I thank God that by His grace and mercy I am who and where I find myself – on the other side. I thank God. Really I do, for when you have travelled around and within countries ravaged by poverty, in fact, extreme poverty, you must but thank God that your path is positively different and more pleasurable. Thanksgiving.
So I thought of this neighbour of our driver. I sympathised with his plight. Perhaps he deserved no sympathy – I don’t know. All I could imagine was that life must have thrown him a thousand and one blows and he just could not rise again.
Request for Lipton Tea
Then I thought of someone else I had had the privilege of meeting in 1999. Another driver. A hotel driver. He was driving me to our office in Accra from the hotel I was residing at and began to ask the usual questions of which country I had come from etc. He then of course proceeded to tell me his own story. Poor, helpless, the lot.
He then asked me to purchase a box of Lipton Tea for him on my next trip to Ghana.
When I arrived at our office I relayed the conversation to one of my colleagues. “Don’t mind him," my colleagues said. “For all you know that man refused to go to school as a child and was rebellious. That’s why he finds himself where he is.” I chose not to believe my colleague. For how could anyone choose to be unproductive?
Decisions and choices we make
But several years later I realise that some of us do actually choose to be unproductive – myself being no exception. But I think the difference might be that most of us choose to have few moments of unproductiveness (or indeed may be thrown into unproductiveness by a situation - positive or negative) and many moments of productiveness, for that is the path of progress. Sometimes it is about choice. But also a lot of the time it is about His grace and mercy.
At fellowship the other evening, our leader reminded us that whether 2009 is a year of possibilities for any one of us will depend on the decisions we make or choose to make.
Sobering.
May we all choose paths that will lead to progress and fulfilment during this and coming years, even whilst weathering the storms of the path to the day after tomorrow.
For some odd reason over the past few days my thoughts have been towards a statement our driver in Sierra Leone made some years ago. Bless him. I can’t quite recall what started the conversation – it was probably the usual case of the driver cutting into the private conversation of his passengers and giving his own, though unwarranted, insights to whatever topic we were discussing.
On this particular occasion though, I must say I was engaged by what he had to say. His penny’s worth on this occasion was that one of his neighbours was being irresponsible and above all was seriously committing a sin against God. Why so?
He explained that the man was unemployed, had been so for a long while and was actually not actively looking for work. Yet the man had over ten young children and one of his wives had just given birth yet again. How would he look after the new baby, let alone the baby’s siblings?
Well, you many think that was not a profound statement but in a country and indeed a continent where to have children and plenty of them, regardless of your ability (financial, emotional, physical and otherwise) to look after and take care of them, is regarded as a raison etre of existence, it was a profound statement – particularly coming from a barely literate individual.
I stopped in my tracks
Here was a man, probably not much older than me, in his 30s but looking at least twice that age because of the effects of war and abject poverty, demonstrating agility of thought, mind and purpose. He himself had lost his two children at the hands of RUF rebels during the war. Post-conflict, he adopted a little girl orphaned by the war, and, by the grace of God, birthed his own biological daughter some years after. He considered his two children truly the apple of his eye.
There was not a day that would go by that he would not buy something on the road for his children – be it a loaf of bread, sweets or a toy. Those kids were his delight.
On bricks and mortar and the corrugated iron roofing sheets
I pondered the difference between this barely literate driver and his neighbour whose story he had told me. Why was one so apparently different from the other even though their background in economic status and social class were apparently almost exactly the same? I recalled that the driver had told us that he had not really gone to school. He learnt to drive and had worked as a driver all his life. And work hard and consistently he did. Gathered enough money to ‘hire’ a banged up 1970s Mercedes from someone and used that as his private taxi hire, paying a monthly fee to the owner of the car. From his earnings he was building a home and a roof over the head of his family. Three rooms. He had literally built that home with his own hands and the support of a few others. He took one of my colleagues to see the home once. Bricks and mortar with corrugated iron roofing sheets covering the bricks.
But it was a home. Our driver was also paying for the school fees of his children – at a Government assisted school – and was looking forward to their future, despite the precariousness of the nation state that he resided in.
Are all born equal?
Then I wondered how he could be so responsible and his neighbour apparently not. I wondered if all indeed are born equal. I wondered whether really we could say that his neighbour is just plain lazy and irresponsible, or might it just be the case that life had dealt him a blow and he did not know how to recover? I really wondered.
I must say that a constant thought that passes through my mind when I come into contact with people who are so apparently poor and living below the poverty line is to wonder ‘what if that were me?’ In the same breath I thank God that by His grace and mercy I am who and where I find myself – on the other side. I thank God. Really I do, for when you have travelled around and within countries ravaged by poverty, in fact, extreme poverty, you must but thank God that your path is positively different and more pleasurable. Thanksgiving.
So I thought of this neighbour of our driver. I sympathised with his plight. Perhaps he deserved no sympathy – I don’t know. All I could imagine was that life must have thrown him a thousand and one blows and he just could not rise again.
Request for Lipton Tea
Then I thought of someone else I had had the privilege of meeting in 1999. Another driver. A hotel driver. He was driving me to our office in Accra from the hotel I was residing at and began to ask the usual questions of which country I had come from etc. He then of course proceeded to tell me his own story. Poor, helpless, the lot.
He then asked me to purchase a box of Lipton Tea for him on my next trip to Ghana.
When I arrived at our office I relayed the conversation to one of my colleagues. “Don’t mind him," my colleagues said. “For all you know that man refused to go to school as a child and was rebellious. That’s why he finds himself where he is.” I chose not to believe my colleague. For how could anyone choose to be unproductive?
Decisions and choices we make
But several years later I realise that some of us do actually choose to be unproductive – myself being no exception. But I think the difference might be that most of us choose to have few moments of unproductiveness (or indeed may be thrown into unproductiveness by a situation - positive or negative) and many moments of productiveness, for that is the path of progress. Sometimes it is about choice. But also a lot of the time it is about His grace and mercy.
At fellowship the other evening, our leader reminded us that whether 2009 is a year of possibilities for any one of us will depend on the decisions we make or choose to make.
Sobering.
May we all choose paths that will lead to progress and fulfilment during this and coming years, even whilst weathering the storms of the path to the day after tomorrow.
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