Curse Magnets

He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse. (Proverbs 28:27)

In my not so very long life, I have seen enough things to give me some accurate consequences of some of the things we do.

I have seen extreme reversal of fortunes, a reversal that could only be called miraculous. I have been around situations which are so amazing that were I not around the situation could have simply refused the happenings. Many times it fits more with the situations where truth is stranger than fiction.

I therefore want us to look at some actions and attitudes that seem to draw curses or judgment without fail from the scriptures. I will give stories of situations I have seen or heard from reliable sources. But for the most part it will be people and situations of people known to me. I will try my best to protect their identities as I am not doing a documentary. As such I may have to change some details to achieve that. But the story will maintain the key facts.

Our area having been a hotbed of the freedom struggle meant that the colonialists and their henchmen really brought down people and families who were Mau Mau or even remotely perceived to be sympathetic to the Mau Mau. It was no surprise that when they were given the positions of subdividing the land, they made sure that none of them got any land. My father, having been in the forest for the struggle lost the land he had had before he joined the struggle for that land. (By the way he has no land to date as someone had sworn to ensure that nothing like that happened as long as he was alive).

Poverty was therefore a very present reality when I grew up. But I have shared this to give you a context to most of the stories.

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There was this teacher whose husband was a senior civil servant. As is common in farming communities, the mother is normally required to manage farming as the husband gets the money. Due to that, the family was unimaginably wealthy especially in those times when a very tiny minority was employed. Most were simply peasant farmers, many who did not even have their own land.

There was this family that had lost their father but at least had some land. The mother was probably overwhelmed with raising so many children after the death of her husband that she did not do a good job of making her farm profitable or keeping her children neat and clean. Of course you know that poverty worsens such situations.

That was the season jiggers were a nuisance. They therefore really harassed those poor children.

The teacher’s children however were the envy of all around. They had shoes, a thing not many adults had. They also had changes of clothes and were always clean.

This teacher really harassed those poor orphans. How dirty they were, how those jiggers ought to be removed. She made their life in school a nuisance. No wonder none of them went far in education.

Of course her children went as far as their grades could take them as they did not have any financial bottlenecks. But they did not soar very high.

Fast forward to many years later. A son of this miserable widow is able to become good in business. Incidentally the firstborn of this teacher is sent to work in the town this jigger-past guy is and they fall in love. In fact they go too fast and get a child before the parents know.

Now imagine this widow going to ask for a wife from this teacher for her son! Do you think God allowed her to forget her taunts when the children were young? Do you think this young man ever forgot those taunts?

But imagine if you were that teacher.

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There was this man whose compound we as children yearned to see because it had two gates, with a warning about dogs, the only one I saw as I grew up at the gate next to the road. And each gate had a fence and a very well trimmed hedge. He also was working class and so that compound was not one us peasants could enter as his children were better than the rest. And only a countable number of compounds had any fence, leave alone a gate.

When God asked me to leave employment and I spent some time at home, I used to see this same old man very early getting into the chief’s house. Many times he would arrive before the gate was opened. His crises must have been extreme as he never waited for him to get to the office but came to his home.

A friend who was older than me one day saw this old man and told me that he remembered something in his past (in the 1960s).

This chief’s father did not have land and did not have a job whereas this man had both. But both would frequent a bar with their age mates. This friend of mine was much younger than them but as you know in a bar there is some equality.

Well, as they were drinking, a friend ordered some beers for this penniless age mate. This employed rich guy made a very sharp and scathing statement.

‘Why should you buy anything for this guy? Isn’t that like pouring it on the ground as he will never be able to reciprocate ever?’

This friend who was buying said to this rich friend, ‘you are speaking very foolishly and for that you will at one time be bowing to him’.

That is what was happening. He retired and sold most of that land. He was requiring the services of this age mate’s son to help navigate the issues and battles his retirement had created.

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There was this old man who was the best farmer around. He was the only one I knew who had Friesian cows. He was therefore the one milk societies used as demonstration. He was always the leader in those societies as he was the one who provided the most milk at any time. He was not a snob like most people of that class.

When he died, his whole empire collapsed. His children sold everything. In fact the clan had to block the sale of the land. His wife, who was of such class became a beggar, and not because she did not have food. Her daughters would buy enough food so that she could cook whatever she needed but she sold it. She craved food from restaurants. She became a nuisance if you met her on the road as she would beg for money to buy mandazi.

I was told she was discovered very far from home partially eaten by dogs or hyenas.

Then I was given her story. In our community children belong to the father. As such, when a man impregnates a girl, the girl’s family would take the infant to the boy’s mother to raise. And this is what she found when she got married. Then she really mistreated those children.

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There was this lady whose husband owned the only brick house in a very wide area. That she was proud is an understatement. And her children were not different. They did not mix with the peasants for reasons I have touched on above. It was even visible in church.

When I was home in the season after I had left employment I met her and was amazed. I heard her give a testimony and her humility was palpable. I then wondered around what happened and what I was told was hard to believe.

She leaked a secret of her past to her husband and he blew his top. Instead of evicting her from that brick house he decided to demolish it and build a smaller one for another wife who was the age of his last born daughter.

The same old man died a very miserable death as he was unable to access his money when he was bedridden.

I was told that he made his money by disinheriting his brother’s widows, leaving the widows and orphans in dire straits.

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A lady whose elder brother lost his land because he had been in the forest fighting for what we now call freedom got married to a man of substance who had what can be called prime agricultural land. Incidentally her brother’s children were quite bright.

One day she was asking her nephews and nieces what position they had been in school and all were at the top. Then she commented.

‘What is the need of all this intelligence since none of them can get to high school?’ You see the situation in her brother’s family was desperate as he did not have a job or even land to imagine such luxury.

Incidentally none of her children went to high school. She also died a squatter as her husband sold that land and disappeared. But her brothers children went very far.

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There was this old man who was very rich and he had got his wealth by the sweat of his brow and enough sacrifice. He therefore did not understand how a person can remain poor for so long unless something was wrong with them. Unfortunately he did not keep that to himself but spurted it out to those who would listen, among whom were members of his extended family.

As was usual, he had a number of wives and several sons. But he had prepared for that eventuality. He would buy land and build for his sons and help them get married when they become of age. Then he would help them establish a line of business for themselves.

But his elder sons thought he was chasing them away so that he gives children of his youngest wife all his property. They therefore came back to his main business and started to grab and waste so that those other children get nothing.

By the time this old man died, many of his properties had been sold and the main business closed. But it is interesting that these sons did not grab to save but to squander. Some of them died desperately poor. Many lost their wives who could not adjust to their new status after they had killed their business. It is amazing that these children of the youngest wife required organizing a fundraiser to access education. This despite his arrogance and spite poured on people who could not be able to afford to educate their children.

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There was this shopkeeper who was extremely bright for those times. Since most parents were illiterate it was very easy to swindle them with wrong change. But he was one ahead. He enthralled the children. He would swindle the child a shilling or two and give them sweets (candies) worth ten cents, and they were many then. Of course his shop became the stop for most children, especially those who did not care to establish whether they got the correct change or not. And his shop was really stocked.

I then come to that shop a few years later and what do I find? It was being run by a prostitute. What had happened? I was not able to find out though I found the same man in a desert town. But even the prostitute did not operate it for long.

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The point of all these stories is that God is still as alive as He was. He also has not changed a little bit. Many people talk and behave as if the death of Christ neutered the attributes of God that we see in the Old Testament. But nothing can be farther from the truth.

I have talked about capitalism and mammon several times in my blog. This is an example of what capitalism and mammon opens one to if we pursue them. Selfishness and pride are the first fruits of a life dominated by the pursuit of gain as one thinks they have what they have because they are better than the rest or that they have put in more effort than the rest. And no wonder they will pour spite on the down and outs.

I have intentionally refused to talk about mistreatment and spite of ministers of the Gospel so that you will not think I am threatening you to treat me nicely. I do not need to fight for myself. I do not need to plead for support. The God I serve is more than adequate to fend for His own servants and does not need them lending a hand.

You see God has a special place for the disadvantaged. Look at all the verses God speaks about the orphan and widow. Look at the way He speaks about the refugee (alien). Look at how He speaks about the poor.

That wealth you have must be surrendered to God to be of use to your posterity. I have not given stories of people who hoarded so that their children will have a head start in life only to have all the money and property disappear before the same children are old enough to access it.

There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand. (Ecclesiastes 5:13, 14)

But I just wanted us to know that God HATES spite for the poor and disadvantaged and MUST punish it somehow. That is one thing I can say emphatically as I have seen it all over I have been. It is only that I chose a location and a time span to pick the stories from. But what I have shared in these stories can be seen wherever there is much disparity on any plane.

It might be that one family has bright children whereas the other has those who have problems writing their names. It might be a family that accesses an excess of favor and openings when the other seems to have all the doors slammed in their face. It might be in ministry where one seems spoilt for choice when the other seems condemned by God though he is as diligent, if not more, than the one experiencing that much success.

DO NOT DESPISE OTHERS. YOU WILL PAY FOR IT. And you can take that to the bank as they say.

For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit. (Ecclesiastes 2:26)

God hates pride.

These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood … (Proverbs 6:16, 17)

To call pride an abomination is very strong, especially coming from God Himself.

The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. (Proverbs 8:13)

A man's pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit. (Proverbs 29:23)

We realize that pride was the reason Pharaoh was humbled. It was because of pride that Nebuchadnezzar ate grass like a cow. And of course we know that pride is what made Lucifer be thrown down from heaven.

Rejoice in your achievements. Only do not look down on the ones who seem divorced from any achievements. God loves them not a whit less than He does you as they are also created in His image and likeness.

Above all, realize that your success is not your personal property though it might legally be in your name. God has a bigger purpose for it than your narrow view.

There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. (Proverbs 11:24)

God is the giver and the disadvantaged are the testing ground for our connecting with His agenda. Despising them and rebuking them for everything from laziness to lack of smart planning might actually be taking you their route.

But I also need to add that in those few years I have seen such a reversal of fortunes that I do not stop being amazed. Most of the then very rich are now at the bottom of the wealth ladder and those who were desperately and hopelessly poor are now the leading tycoons in that small area I have profiled. Though Christ was talking about His kingdom I have seen this verse being very true that the first shall be last and the last first.

Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble. (Psalm 41: 1)