Pressure Venting

What I am seeing in the States is not strange. this is the automatic response to an extended lockdown and its implications; lack of earning power, inhibition, etc.

Pressure slowly builds up and is only waiting for a simple prick to explode.

that is what I think has happened.

Whether whoever was guilty or not is irrelevant. Whether whoever can be justified also does not matter.

People have become like a balloon filled to capacity and not enjoying it.

The event was the trigger. The valve was released. The balloon was pricked.

Sadly, nobody can be in control of the outcome, though politicians will take advantage of the same to launch their campaigns.

Any government interested in survival must take that in consideration instead of aggravating the situation.

A people under pressure is a bomb waiting to be detonated.

Hope our leaders learn from this before their countries explode because the leaders are eating everything without caring for those they lead

Like I have written elsewhere, leadership is foresight, period.

Do we have leaders?

Content

Have you ever spent a long time following news from one news channel? What do you find outstanding?

It is the fact that news items are repeatedly appearing as breaking news almost every hour.

Why is that?

The truth is that it is impossible to get enough bad news to fill a few hours, let alone the 24 hours media houses are supposed to be churning out news. It is therefore inevitable that news will be repeated, hoping that nobody has spent much time watching that channel.

A number of times I have decided to verify the amount of news in the most popular newspaper. I was shocked to discover that on aggregate only seven pages in an over 60 page newspaper consists of news. The rest is advertisements, advertorials and advertisers’ and features articles. In short, only about 10% of a popular newspaper consists of news.

It has become more hopeless with this virus as there is basically no new thing to expect when you watch, listen or read from news outlets. It has become so bad that the ‘appetite’ for news has all but evaporated. Very few people, if any, rush to watch news even as curfews make you constrained behind that screen.

Very soon I suspect newspapers will be bribing people to buy their newspapers and radio and TV media will have to probably offer almost free advertisements as the audience will all but disappear after the lockdowns and curfews are removed.

People are tired of repeatedly following badly packaged bad news without a hopeful end, or any end for that matter. People are tired of reading and hearing and watching the same thing again and again. But curfews and lockdowns offer no solution as they continue to force us to watch them again and again.

Many people have approached me to help them start magazines for churches or ministries. My first question has always been whether they have adequate content. And they quickly answer that that is not a problem. Instead of disputing with them, I ask them for the content for the first edition.

They will quickly gather the articles to fill the first magazine and discover that it was not that easy. I will therefore help them fill that first magazine and edit and arrange it for production.

They will disappear after the production of that first edition as they will discover that content is not that easy to get.

Let me now delve into the spiritual realm.

Do you realize the lack of content in things spiritual? Have you realized that the narrative from pastors has for a long time been as predictable as that of news items under the virus? 

Where is the freshness and newness of God’s revelation?

But I want us to look at the context of the complete Bible as we look at this topic. I especially want us to examine the doctrine of grace.

Just like the news media is boring us by lacking the freshness and objectivity of our inquisitive minds through their laziness in searching far and wide for news beyond bad and predictable occurrences, many preachers have narrowed their understanding of the same to just a few verses in a select pool of books. They behave as if grace began with them and the few verses they ascribe to.

Did you realize that grace began with creation? Do you know that it is the rolling topic of the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation?

Or do you not remember that Christ was crucified before creation as the Bible says?

The whole Bible is the tapestry on which grace is woven. Choosing a few verses that agree with your persuasion is immoral, however cogent it appears.

The pardon of Nineveh was as much grace as the razing of Sodom. The rescue of Lot was as much grace as turning his wife into a pillar of salt. The adoption of Rahab the harlot into Israel was as much grace as the destruction of Achan. And the anointing of David was as much grace as the rejection of Saul.

Grace paints a portrait of God.Choosing the side of Him I want will not erase those aspects I do not fancy just as tearing your picture because it shows your unattractive face will do nothing to that face.

That God is love and forgiving does not erase the fact that He is holy and just and thus must punish sin.

Justification does not mean that we are declared righteous, it means that somebody paid for that to be possible. Like I have always said, free means that somebody else has paid for it.

And that is what grace stands for; Christ dying for our sins. It does not mean that He changed the way God looks at sin.

The fact that Christ dies for our sins is a greater demonstration of how much God hates sin. Just look at this

He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10: 28, 28)

And it is talking about a believer continuing in sin.

Yet the peddlers of a false grace will want us to criminalize addressing sin in a believer! They therefore do not address sin in their preaching, or anywhere else.

Sadly, that will not stop sin being what it is to God or even the believer.

Stopping to address sin will automatically mean we will be unable to address temptation and what it produces. It also means we cannot be able to handle spiritual growth when all it means is that we possess what was got for us without trying. In other words we have cheapened grace.

And that is why I am talking about content. Just like the media has become increasingly irrelevant as they have become fixated on the lazy reporting on what the authorities are churning out, so have the peddlers of this cheap grace become to their hearers.

You see, a drug addict will not cling to you when the only solution you offer to his prison is ‘it is finished’ and ‘just receive’. Valid and powerful as the statements may be in another context, they may become woefully condescending to him, even cause him worse despair than he had before he came to you.

Our doctrine of grace must be anchored on the whole Bible to accurately represent God.

And that is not the only one.

Do you realize that tongues are first recorded in Genesis? Do you realize that Paul quotes the prophets as he is instructing the church about their usage? Why then should we limit our theology of the same to just a verse in Acts?

Do you know that you see the words filled with the Spirit in Exodus? What are we then doing when we focus on a single incident in Acts when even the same Acts has several incidences of the same?

We are only safe if we took the whole Bible as our text book, if I may call it that.

Otherwise we could be dumped with the prophets of Jeremiah’s time who were called teachers of rebellion. All because they sought to give an easily palatable message.

By nature, man is rebellious. He will thus look for messages that will keep him comfortable in that rebellion. That is since the fall. In fact that is what the fall is.

Do you expect God to be fine with that?

That is the reason prophets died. They confronted man’s nature with God’s truth.

That is the reason Jesus was unpopular. He offered God’s solution, even by becoming it.

Sadly for us that solution kills our personal pride that incidentally is the reason we fell into the place of need in the first place.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

That is why we are looking for a grace that will make us comfortable. And that is the reason preachers want to preach a grace that will make them popular. That is why believers want to post spiritual posts that garner many likes.

Sadly, that is not God’s grace.

God gives us power over sin. Closing our eyes to sin is not the way we access that victory.

It is when we look at sin in the eyes that God has availed us in the scriptures that we can walk in victory over it. Otherwise we could be boasting at a victory that is nonexistent.

While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. (2Peter 2:19)

You see, victory demands there being a fight. You cannot be more than a conqueror without any conquest. And there can be no conquest without a fierce fight.

It is therefore self-defeating to talk about overcoming without defining what it is you are overcoming. It is even worse when there is no process involved in the same.

Our content is therefore from the whole Bible or it isn’t Biblical, or even adequate.

The Problem with Kenyan Politics

I want to highlight the one thing that is the bane of our politics.

And it is the fact that the president and his loyalists behave as if he is a king as opposed to being a president.

President is a constitutional and elective office. This means that it is subject to a constitution and the will of the masses that elected him, and of course those other elected leaders. No wonder he swears to defend the constitution when he takes the oath of office.

His office is therefore just like any other constitutional office. That is why his appointments must be vetted by another constitutional and elective office, parliament. And even those can be challenged in another constitutional office, judiciary.

Even the constitution itself is the product of many voices. Many viewpoints, many opinions, many interests uniting to make the one that best represents their varied positions, meaning that each will have to agree on what to cede so that the other is also part of the common constitution.

And a constitutional republic continues in consultation throughout its existence. Each must listen and respect the voice of the other for harmony.

Throwing tantrums because people have refused to attend a meeting he has called (a meeting that I suspect was called to beat them to submission) to the point of kicking people out of their constitutional offices is telling.

It is only a king whose word is law. Yet isn’t it interesting that the queen of England was unable to do anything to a prince who opted out of royalty?

A president who expects all other constitutional offices to bow to his whims is dangerous even to himself.

That is why he can knock people out of their houses (by destroying the houses) in this devastating rain against court orders. That is why he can lock out Nairobi at a whim (without giving any notice). That is why he increases the price of kerosene (the poor man’s fuel) way above diesel to tackle fuel adulteration when the criminals can be dealt with easily. That is why we see courts on the verge of throwing out corruption cases of his ‘enemies’ because a year down the line evidence is wanting. That is why he orders PSVs to reduce their capacity by half without showing them how they will make up for the shortfall in revenues. Yet he orders a curfew without caring to know how people will get home. Then he orders his police force to beat such violators to submission until some are beaten to death.

You see, once you think your word is law, you cease to consult, meaning that you will continue to demonstrate your limited understanding of issues.

For example, why are people being kicked out of their constitutional offices?

The genesis is the breach of a longstanding covenant they had with his deputy and his team when they joined hands in politics, eventually merging their parties. And do not tell me there is no evidence because he even publicly said that they had agreed on each of them serving ten years.

In any case, a come-we-stay arrangement is deemed a marriage in law whether it was formalized or not. So do not yap about who paid who and who betrayed who. A team cannot be one without agreement.

Then he trashes that and enters into another political marriage behind his partner’s back.

And he gets angry when they feel betrayed!

It is like a friend who was living with a woman for some time. I do not know the terms they were living under. Then he decided to perform a church wedding, but with another girl. Would you call that fair? Was the woman justified in feeling betrayed?

But the issue here is that of constitutionality and logic.

Respecting you doesn’t mean I agree with everything you say or do. Only a spoiled child thinks it that way because he otherwise will throw tantrums. I can respect you even as I aggressively disagree with you. Being respected as a president means your office is respected. It has nothing to do with sycophancy. When you use that office badly, not only do you abuse the office, but you cause people to disrespect your person since personal respect is earned. And people who prop you and allow you to behave as such are traitors.

Each of us is here for a season. Then we will leave whether we like it or not.

We fight so that we can leave a legacy of sorts. And that is what the president has been saying.

But should he leave a legacy of arrogance and disloyalty? Does he leave a legacy of being so out of touch with the common man so that he can openly wonder why Kenyans are broke? Will he leave a legacy of someone who disrespects independent thought? Will he leave a legacy of someone who does not care what courts decree?

When will our president stop behaving like a king? When will his inner circle leave those ivory towers to listen to what mwananchi is saying?

Terrorism

I want us to look at this virus as the highest form of terrorism.

I have written elsewhere about terrorism and so will not repeat much. But I will just pose a few questions.

What is the purpose of terrorism? What is the end game of terrorism?

Like I have posed elsewhere, the whole purpose of terrorism is control. Terror happens so that people can of their own volition relinquish their rights to some other idiots. Sadly, they also cede their brains in the process.

I have said, and you know that death and destruction are not the real purpose of terror. Fear is.

Death is the tool used to cause the fear that makes one’s brain go soft. But it is not so much death as it could backfire as nothing is as bad as desperation as it means that there will be nothing to lose. Being cornered leaves people with the only option of fighting.

Terrorism causes just enough damage to arouse fear; a paralyzing fear. Then we will be in a position to listen to everything we are told after allowing the ones we think are more in control to guide us without questioning them.

But it does something else. It causes us to fear challenging things that we could even know are wrong for fear of arousing the ire of the cause of terror.

That is why we see even church leaders defending Islam after a terror attack.

And this is why even the media is scared of researching on all the truths and untruths we are fed with in a terror season.

Sadly, this virus falls flush on these scenarios.

It creates that rare chance of ‘it could be me’ even where the chances are very few.

That is why terrorists will never say what their next target is as it will take away the aspect of surprise.

They will therefore kill two people and negotiate as if they have two million people in captivity. And that single attack plus a few misfires will convince a government and its people that their crazy demands must be met.

Do you realize that corona has effectively killed terrorism around the world? In short, corona is a terrorist to whom other terrorists are submitted to.

Sadly, corona is behaving as if it is reading from that same script word for word. Or probably I should say the people in charge of the narrative are treating us like that. Worse still is that they are taking us for fools.

But some governments are doing even worse because they are using the pretext of the virus, not only to settle old and new political and business scores, they are using it to steal from the populace. And our government exemplifies this.

The other day they demolished a slum in this rain against a court order. And word circulating is that a leader wants to use that land.

How do you throw people out in the rain when the same government has frozen infrastructure development finances? How do you kick out six thousand plus families and still want us to believe you are fighting the virus? How will those families practice distancing as they huddle in the rain?

Hot on the heels of that demolition they still demolish another estate where people bought land legally and the same government had promised to offer them alternative land to move to as the government needs to use that land. Sadly, even that demolition was done against a court order. And the people were not even refusing to move as they were just waiting to be shown where to move to.

People who had built very good houses have now to sleep in the rain with their little ones.

And the leadership is offended when people doubt their narrative on this virus!

How do you lock down a city and expect people to cooperate when you do it at a whim? You do not care what people will eat, or even if they will eat. And your government sells to those who have the food meant for those who do not have and you do not care.

How do you fight succession political wars when your people are displaced and starving? Why do you prohibit meetings yet hold one to make changes in a parliament so that it only serves your interests, a parliament that could be dead for all we care?

Who between the government and the virus is the actual terrorist?

How do you kill enterprise and expect respect? How do you stop the small man from looking for food and expect him to listen to you as you lecture him on, to him, idiotic and unworkable, directives?

Sadly, only the law abiding are suffering for compliance as even the police you place on those barricades do not believe you and they need that extra coin. And it is not even much money required to break those rules. People are crossing almost daily since they must make a living. It is therefore those who seek to obey that are restricted. Yet there are families that have been torn apart by these on the spur restrictions.

Some have been converted to beggars, and some even worse.

Imagine this person who was travelling from the Coast to Western Kenya caught in Nairobi where they have nobody they know. Or this person who had come to shop for stock to travel by night bus then Nairobi is closed up yet they had exhausted all their monies getting stock. How do they convince someone they have only communicated on phone to host them for two months especially since they have no way to repay as they can’t trade?

How many marriages will break (probably are already broken) because a woman was thrown to the dogs by this cessation of movements without prior notice because they had to get somewhere to stay and there is nothing for free? And what will men in such situations do?

How many children are starving because their breadwinner was locked away from their livelihood?

I know many are shouting I should be sharing spiritual things. But tell me how spiritual you can become when you have nothing to eat for days. How spiritual can you be when you know that you are unable to provide for your children because you are unable to get to them or even fend for yourself in a land nobody knows you? How spiritual can you be if you are boiling stones to give your children hope as they sleep like the mother covered by the media?

We must preach the Gospel. We will preach the Gospel.

But the Gospel does not exist in a vacuum. Jesus fed people as He preached. He healed as He preached.

We must call out an insensitive leadership that is only focused on their stomach, their own issues. Otherwise we will be judged for not doing so and have their judgment transferred to us.

They must know that God is angry with the way they are treating their subjects (that is how they call us though they are not kings) even as they munch our taxes even as they ask us to tighten our belts.

God has put us in the grassroots to be able to know the experiences of the vulnerable and not just so that we can pray and intervene in their situations, but so that we can share their plight with those God has entrusted their welfare to. And it is because He will hold them accountable for the way they run that trust God gave them.

An insensitive leadership will be judged. And it is incumbent on Christ’s ministers to tell them so.

A leadership that uses the terror of a virus to terrorize those they swore to lead must repent or they are judged.

Let us call out on the world to return to God beginning with the leaders.

Of course I am assuming the spiritual leadership has learnt and responded as God would have it do since that is the only way to manage all these people who are flocking to God’s saving grace in Christ.

Otherwise we could be creating a different crisis of people coming to Christ and having no one to usher them into the Christian faith. Then we will be having an avalanche of cults and other undesirable outcomes from those who receive Christ.

Yet we have enough of a problem with believers who are in the wilderness as their superstars have been emasculated by the closure of churches yet they really had no personal theology to talk about as they were only good at parroting what their spiritual leaders were saying.

Spiritual leaders must be willing and ready to cede their power and authority to those under them as Christ did. They must be ready to teach everything Christ taught as the Great Commission commands. Then they can without blemish be able to confront evil with the other leadership.

That is the only thing that can counter all forms of terror being visited on the believer from all fronts.

Of Roots and Fruit

I want us to look at what is happening to the world to help us appreciate the fact that leaves do not determine the fruit produced.

Remember Jesus cursing a fig tree? And why?

The leaves were broadcasting the fact that there was fruit on the tree when the reality was otherwise.

We will therefore be in error if we expected to learn fruitfulness from leaves when it is the roots that have that responsibility.

Remove all the leaves from a tree and they will sprout again. Mess with the roots and you can be assured of withering.

But today I want us to look at people and what their roots make them. Why are some people honest?

Some are so because of their motivations. They either fear being found out or like it is said, what goes around comes around. In short they fear the repercussions of being found out or paid back.

Though that is not a bad motivation, it has so many limitations.

Would you still be honest if you are in a position that would neutralize any consequences? For example, would you still be honest if there is nobody questioning your dishonesty?

That is simply integrity managed by the leaves.

A faulty root system is the reason we get perplexed when someone who was the epitome of integrity becomes otherwise when they get into positions of authority. They simply lost the motivation of pursuing honesty since they think they have overshot any repercussions. We are shocked because we had thought that their integrity proceeded from the roots.

That is why a couple that was the personification of faithfulness and great marriage become whoremongers when they strike success.

Did they stop loving each other? Of course not. They simply got through the fear of what unfaithfulness could inflict.

It is the reason a lady who had been dressing conservatively starts dressing immodestly when she gets into money or fame.

In short, many do right because they fear the consequences of doing wrong or are in pursuit of the rewards of doing right.

Yet honesty should be operated from the roots for it to have any lasting impact.

By this I mean being honest because you can’t be otherwise. It is in your nature and you do not care or even mind whether anyone even notices. Repercussions are never in your mind as you perceive and pursue honesty. And you do not become devastated when your good is taken advantage of or abused because you can’t be otherwise.

And it is the same with all the other virtues like generosity and fairness.

Or haven’t you seen people who exploit their servants and employees being very generous when cameras are around? Others give because their religion insists, yet they have no motivation of decently paying their employees or treating their juniors with respect. Leaf generosity!

And this virus ought to expose some of these charlatans.

How does a leader who has refused to address the flooding that is a perennial problem in parts of this country respond to the same with food donations? Why should you pursue applause when the right thing would be a long term solution to something that repeats almost every year?

The foundation is wrong. The roots are rotten and therefore give poisoned sap.

Sadly, it is not much different in the faith dimension.

Most worship God for what He has to offer or for fear of how He can punish us? But the leaves attract attention.

No wonder the prosperity ungospel is so attractive. Its motivations are so leafy. That is why the rupture and purgatory are so attractive. They offer a second chance when we misbehave. They are offering hope to the leaves instead of challenging the roots to fruitfulness.

That is why people will fast and pray to get a job and stop attending church when they get it. That is why a young person will be sold out to church before getting married yet stop attending church when they get a spouse.

That is a leafy religion.

And that is true of every aspect of our lives.

When we look at this virus, we have been exposed to a lot of leafy concern and rooty oppression.

The virus has been able to release the sap that good sailing had hidden all these years.

Could I be allowed to become a conspiracy theorist for once?

I suspect that the virus was not the reason churches were closed in Kenya. It was just the excuse politicians needed.

Why do I say that?

Why did they not close bars until there was uproar? And why have they opened bars again by calling them eateries?

You see, a nyama choma joint is really not a restaurant. At least that is not why it is started. Incidentally that is why they are hidden far from where we live.

They represent everything we are ashamed of being caught doing, from prostitution to drunkenness.

We thus cannot expect any moral positive from them. And since they are established to help sinners escape consequences, we do not expect them to fall in line with government directives.

Churches were closed by the leafy generosity and worship.

You see, they attend church and give generously when they are looking for votes or applause.

Sadly for them, the threat to their political ambition is always attending church and giving, which going by their root system is interpreted as campaigning for an election that is years away.

Their generosity in campaigns drains them terribly as it proceeds from leaves. How can one be always giving and not get drained? How can one be always be attending church without tiring and not appear to be campaigning like they always do when they attend church? How can someone be so shrewd in their campaign?

They therefore close churches to bring equality in giving and worship. They then think they have evened the playing ground as they have closed the campaign of their opponent.

They forget that a giver is always giving and a worshipper is always worshipping. He therefore does not require a location as his sap is always flowing. I will not be surprised if I found out that their generosity and worship has breached many other obstacles.

You see, a tank of water might appear to contain more water than a spring. But you cannot depend on the tank in the long run since it is just storage. A well may drip a few drops per second. But it will be dripping all the time. And that could be the clearest explanation of the difference between leaf and root givers and/ or worshippers.

To this day I do not think there is any reason for closing churches, especially as markets are still overflowing with humanity. They and the slums are still making a joke of government guidelines about distancing. But I won’t repeat what I have written elsewhere.

But they still can’t afford to open churches as their ‘caged’ enemy could then be released with renewed vigor. Then their greatest energy at caging would come to a cropper so badly.

That is why the church needs to pray that God does something to change the situation. Or we will wait for permission to open churches for a very long time.

Yet this challenge of leaf goodness is not the preserve of the politicians. It is only that they are the most visible at this time.

In the spiritual it is worse. Imagine a leafy pastor or evangelist! And this is why we have shady preaching that is more motivational and entertaining than prophetic and Biblical.

But I will not be an effective minister if I just point out at the problem. I must give the solution.

It starts with knowing where we come from; a God who created us perfect and without the stain of sin. We must therefore seek to know God at a very personal level because only then will we be able to know how we ought to be.

We can only do that by delving into His word. Only then can we know His expectation.

But second is that we will be able to make the connection to enable us link up with Him to enable us to change our root system to become as He is.

This is because only He has the power to make us align to how He created us. Then our roots will start producing health.

For starters can you read Psalm 19?

Fuelling Rebellion

Have you ever wondered what fuels jail breaks?

Why do people attempt an impossible and death attracting feat? Are they just plain stupid?

You see, prison is so protected that it is supposedly impossible to break out. It is so fortified and watched over so that it is almost impossible to take two steps without someone entrusted with keeping you in jail noticing.

And the wardens are the best trained in dealing with the characters in jail that they would easily murder you if you attempted to get out.

Yet there are jailbreaks!

Why do they happen?

I think that the life those prisoners lead in prison becomes so bad that it becomes too tempting to attempt that break. Someone thinks that a 1% chance of success is better than life in prison.

I suspect that the kind of treatment they receive in prison leads them to make that decision as they must be aware of all the options.

You see, being caught breaking out is almost certain death. And even chances of being caught again even if you break out are still very high as you are dealing with the government. And there must be injuries even if one escapes and worse injuries if caught.

I suspect that life in prison becomes worse than death itself that someone thinks dying breaking out is a better death as it most likely will be a quick one. Nobody breaks out of prison for fun. They find it as the best option considering the conditions in that prison.

Yet I am not talking about prison here. I am talking about our government and this virus. I use a prison break to give us a context.

You see, the government is desperately looking for those numbers to satisfy whoever that they are trashing the populace. They are punishing us for not giving them those numbers fast enough.

They are therefore condemning whole communities for the failure of getting those numbers.

In desperation they demolish a slum in this rain. Because the cold will then kill people. Then we can say it is corona!

Why do I say that?

Someone has an accident that writes off the vehicle he was driving and dies of corona! Another one dies from an asthmatic attack and is buried as a victim of the same even before the tests are done; which come out negative.

But that is not the only cause.

They are trashing options, viable options.

Senegal has come out with a cheap and effective fast test for the virus. But our government trashes it. And their argument holds as much water as a bottle top – that people taking particular drugs will escape detection. How many of us take those drugs?

All the while as this test they recommend has demonstrated worldwide how unreliable it can be, and expensive. In fact our neighbor has demonstrated that it even finds plants and animals positive!

Again, one ‘recommended’ test would cater for probably fifty of those Senegal ones. Why not use that cheap one for mass testing and then that expensive one for those who can bypass it?

But you are not cheap. Not if you can take tea worth 4 million in a month. And I doubt it is even twenty of you. A hundred shilling test is below your class.

Then Madagascar has found a drug for prevention and cure of the virus. And to date they have not recorded a single death.

Why do you also trash that yet it was a researcher who discovered it? Unless it is also too cheap for your class.

You are blocking all avenues of relief even as you continue not only to curtail our freedoms, but also kill our livelihoods. And you are surprised if we do not take your word for truth.

We also do not believe your facts. You appear too intent on pushing them down our throats.

You see, you wanted 10 000 to be positive by the end of April and failed.

You sacked (demoted? transferred?) the lead researcher at KEMRI. And now the numbers are growing. Very good.

But the Kenyan is not impressed. And your behavior and proclamations have not given him any opportunity to trust you. Not when you condemn him wholesale even as you live so expensively on his account.

And this is why I am using the analogy of a jail break.

Do not stretch this too far. You are not dealing with children.

By the way, I am a Christian minister and not a politician. I am not interested in those positions at all.

Background Front Liners

There has been a lot of talk about frontline soldiers since this virus hit, or was it sent?

We are seeing whole cities standing out and clapping for these soldiers.

But do we realize that behind those soldiers are some very critical support structures, structures that go unnoticed for the most part?

Incidentally, do you know that this is true of all of life where success is involved?

Yet only the stars get all the attention and recognition.

Where are the cleaners and the watchmen when the front liners are celebrated? Where are the researchers and drivers? Where are the cooks and disposers of hazardous materials?

You see, we are conditioned to reward the star, almost assuming that he does everything by himself.

The other day nurses were threatening to go on strike because they were feeling slighted as doctors had had their packages drastically improved. Then a lead researcher was sacked for giving results behind time until his fellow researchers started protesting, especially because they felt left out when the government was distributing positions and resources in the fight against the virus.

There is at present an uproar about how ministry honchos have been eating money meant for the intervention on the virus. If I can remember well there was more money spent on tea and airtime for the bosses than for hiring necessary staff, among other crazy expenditure lines.

Yet you may find out that these invisible workers handle the bulk of the work the stars are taking credit for.

Sadly, that is not the only place with that anomaly.

The pastor is the star in a cast with so many other unknown people spending endless donkey hours to ensure he succeeds.

Even in a business or company you will find that the bulk of the people earning peanuts determine the success of the enterprises.

A lawyer has his junior lawyers and legal clerks. A professor has the many students doing his research for him. Even a minister like me has a supportive wife and children to thrive, even landlords to ensure he has a place to lay his head.

But many times they are just treated as necessary cogs, evils or something like that.

I do not mind if it happens in the world, evil as it is. But it is really bad when the people of faith behave the same.

Godly men of the past were not like that.

How could Abraham raise an army from his slaves? How could he send a slave with the commission to get a wife for the promise?

Could he have done that if he had treated them like we do our juniors and subordinates?

Look also at David when Israel is being judged because he had ordered a census. Ha absolves Israel and pleads that he be allowed to take the judgment as he was the one culpable.

Of course recently we were looking at him making the sharing of the spoils equitable between the army that had actually fought and the one that was too tired that they had been left with the stuff.

But we also see God doing things differently from the way we do.

The priests were at the head of the ministry pyramid, if we may call it such. Do you realize that they did not receive directly from Israel?

The Levites were given the tithe. They then tithed that tithe to the priests.

This meant that no single person was in charge of what was given. We also realize that both teams were forbidden from ‘working’ to ensure that they focused only on the ministry God had called them to.

It of course meant that the priest who was the centre of worship depended on the junior ministers (using our terms as that is not how God calls them) to function.

This meant that none felt the better or worse for his lot in ministry as each needed to be faithful in his ministry for the other to succeed. The visible was dependent on the invisible to function.

But the greatest illustration that God values and recognizes backgrounders is in the parables of the lost. That God stops everything to find that one that is lost.

He does not replace or trash what we would normally think is not so useful, if not useless.

God recognizes everybody in his assembly plant, if we may call it that. And He rewards them according to their work, not impact. That is why we read this in the Bible.

His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. (Matthew 25:21)

Mark this, not powerful and impactful servant. Look at how He also rewards impact when it is misplaced.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7: 21 – 23)

You see, only He has the perfect measure for impact and that is why He rewards faithfulness.

What is faithfulness? It is the persistent and consistent pursuit of what God has revealed to you without wavering. It is like the river keeping to its course even when and where nobody notices it. It is like a tree bearing fruit even when all the fruit is falling off uselessly with no consumers.

What has God called you to? How faithful are you at it?