When is the Will of God, the Will of God?

Dear God,

At what point do we cross the line on this “Will of God”

Please hear me out, Sir…. (don’t roll your eyes yet)

Okay, I know you orchestra the world all by yourself and you know the end from the very beginning….so, my question is….” How can everything that happen be “Your Will?”. That would be controversial, don’t you think?

Here are my submissions…

When my dad died at that early age leaving loads of dependents directly and indirectly everywhere, they said…. “It is the “Will of God”. Okay! But I questioned it…. Aaaah, I did.

“What a God!”, my heart would scream in anger. “If this is his Will….I tremble to know the ones that are not His Will”, I’d whisper anytime I hear my relatives say it.

(Laughs). (Dad, I am sorry, I was kid, I was hurting, and I was foolish……has the foolishness even left yet?) My turn to roll the eyes…. (laughs)

But Seriously, Lord, how can you explain to a child that her dad died in a very ghastly car accident where a drunken trailer crushed him up and it is exactly the way you wanted it…..”Your Will?”. Then make her knee down and praise you? (Think about it a little, Lord? You see, I wasn’t naughty (child or not) I was trying to understand)

Now, we moved on from that….and then, my cousin died, brutally murdered.

And the people all came around with the same “mantra”….. “Aaah, take heart my dear, it is the “Will of God”. I had a very hard time sitting still. There I sat, staring at my cousin’s new wife, with her 1st child barely 1 year old, his mum and siblings all totally dependent on him for livelihood, huddled in deep and raw sorrows, yet nodding at the “mantra” in submission.

I shuddered.

One more submission, Lord, my best friend lost her mum.

My best friend was the one who would caution me when I start querying somethings about our religious beliefs then. Her beliefs even as a little girl were unquestionable. Everything was your Will. She was an only child from her mum. She and her mum went through hell and back-waters from their so-called family. Back then, a woman with one child (girl) was as good as being barren. So, the father married another and another in a bid to multiply and replenish the earth.

Yes, is that not ” your Will” too?

The only succour she had was her mum who shielded her from all the meanness and wheel-dealing in the household by taking it upon herself. Even in the totally absurd wickedness met out on them, their philosophy was “Will of God”. No problem.

Then Chinenye’s mum became pregnant suddenly and the miracle almost blew our minds. (I think I totally forgave you everything by that single miracle, (Imagine me forgiving you…. (Rolls the eyes, Lord)

Father Lord, how we planned for that child. I am sure none of the adults prepared for the child half as much as we did. (It became our “Mission Possible). You’d think the baby belonged to us. My mum made clothes a lot and I bugged her into making dozens of cloths for the unborn child from every piece of clothing we could find. Joseph in Israel could not have competed with that child in the “coat of many colours”. We made sure of that.

Chinenye and I even learnt to sow to make toys and stuff in readiness. (Everything we made had a male and female version just in case). And on the D-day, a beautiful baby boy appeared. Oh, how we laughed and danced. King David couldn’t compete with our dance style.  The boy spent approximately 7 hours with us and went back to heaven, taking his mum with him. Both dead. Just at “the Will of God”

And at that point, huddled in fear and pain beside me…Chinenye whispered….. “Can this really be “the Will of God?”. If you ask me, who will I ask?

Chinenye and I watched in total disbelief as they buried her mum and our baby that day. He didn’t even wear any of those coats of many colours. He didn’t see any of our handmade toys. None. The same day of our greatest joy became the day of our greatest pain.

(Dad, seriously, it’s a miracle I became a true believer. Thank you, because I didn’t start this journey with you very well). I think that when enemies become friends, it is deeper than normal friendship, right? They have seen the worst of each other, so what’s left but love? Because the love I have for you now, in contrast to what it was back then is overwhelming.

Hmm.

Need I tell you what kind of life Chinenye lived afterwards? There’s no need……after all, “it’s your Will”, right?

Dad, honestly, I do not doubt your Will, I just question Man’s use of it. I think that at some point, we turned that to “a tool of absorption/adaptation”. I belief that there is a strong difference between what Africans belief is the “Will of God” and what is your true Will.

I still belief that the missionaries manipulated our existing sense of adaptation to their advantage. Hear me out. Africans were manipulative in the use of “the Will of the Oracle” to perpetuate evil. Now, I belief the missionaries just flipped the coin…and made that same concept, “The Will of God”. I stand to be corrected.

“Dad, your thoughts for us are for good and not for evil….”, Now how does this play in the scheme of things? Where are the disconnections?

A friend of mine in UK lost the brother and in my church mind, I called her up to condole with her and the African in me told her….”It is the Will of God”….

She was clear and emphatic when she replied…. “Nope, not this one. Someone killed my brother; he would be found, and he would pay. I will make sure of it.”

Now, that’s my kind of Christian talking. That’s my kind of believer. Try it in Africa and they wonder when you will “repent”.

This is Your daughter Lord, I told you I am still a little naughty, but I am checking in.