By Pastor Richard Tembo.
London, England. (News of The South) It was recently announced that March 6, 2020 will be the world prayer day for Zimbabwe. What this means is that all eyes on this day will be set on Zimbabwe as the world loving people will go on their knees asking the Almighty God to have mercy on the former breadbasket of Africa country.
It is very important therefore, to take this day very seriously, not only for Zimbabwe but for the whole continent of Africa.
The prayer day comes as a result of incessant poverty and hunger crippling the country. With no solution in sight and all experimental ideas failing, people are exhaustively desperate for a panacea. But the majority of Africa’s problems are spiritual not political as it seemingly look like to many, nor are they economical as it is made to sound like. It is not political in that today’s politics is not of African making and it is neither economical because today’s economic system and set up is not an African design. I am saying this very mindful of the fact that certain punitive measures such as sanctions that come with it are purely not a product of the African continent. I do not think that our own ancestors knew what sanctions are either except for the enemy of peace himself.
The God of Africa, the Almighty, who sent his son Jesus and Joseph and mother Mary to seek refuge in Egypt (Mathew 2:1-3) had a reason for that. God blessed Africa so much that those whose continents were cursed may throng the continent of Africa in order to seek a share of what God had not given to those continents. If there were the same resources in their continents as Africa, there would have been no need for them to colonise the continent.
However, the book of James chapter 4:8 says: draw near to God and he will draw near to you. It is therefore incumbent upon the children of Africa, Zimbabwe in particular, not to ignore what God is saying to us now. When God’s name is raised high in prayers, it brings greatness to our country as it represents the whole of Africa in the spiritual realm on that day. We should therefore on that special day remember to ask God to bless Zimbabwe and the whole Africa and of course, as the whole world will be praying for Zimbabwe, let us as well remember to pray for sanity, love, peace and forgiveness around the world too. Let us say: as you bless our country, may you bless those countries in the same predicament as ours. Let us ask God to transform our continent into a most successful and revered economy.
Let us pray for Zimbabwe to be as it was back in 1980s or even better. However, let us remember also, that God gives and takes away (Job 1:21). As he did in the past, giving us the kind of a country or independence we all hoped for with Zimbabwe becoming the bread basket feeding the surrounding countries, today Zimbabwe is starving-God took away what he had given. The book of 2 Chronicles chapter 7:14 God says: if my people who are called by name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. Therefore, our land needs healing, but only on condition that we humble ourselves and confess our sins and forgive one another by showing contrition and love.
We are being faced by inexplicably spiritual phenomena, difficult to understand unless revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. The weather is angry with us causing drought in our country and we need forgiveness from the weather so we can reap something from the soil that God gave us. But the soil is angry with us as well for tainting it with the innocent blood of our own brothers and sisters and for worshipping idols brought into our forefathers land from afar. We need to ask God to forgive us. But if we cannot shun worshipping those idols God will never heal our land and we will continue to suffer.
Let us pose for a moment and ask ourselves a simple question that: if the goblins and those idols were meant to bring peace, happiness and prosperity, why is it that the country is still struggling. If the goblins were meant to give people everything they need why is it there is no medicine in the hospitals and why cannot the goblins bring electricity and water let alone rain in the country.
For God to heal our land we need to realise truthfully that the Holy God we ask to help and heal Zimbabwe does not tolerate a nation whose people hide goblins and other evil things in their wardrobes so they can turn to them again if their prayer is not or answered. God does not refuse to answer a prayer but he only seems to not have answered our prayer because we think he does not see what we hide in our homes and the consequence of our cleverness is our foolishness and failure to achieve our desired goals. We need to throw away those satanic goblins no matter how important we think they are. By keeping them it means we still have another god whom we trust to help us and the question is, why then bother praying to the God we know for certain does not tolerate a nation that believes in another god.
The 6th of March 2020 having been selected to be a day of speaking to God who brings all happiness to all nations in the world, let it be a day of heart searching for Zimbabweans around the world. Let us humble ourselves and pray for the ability to forgive others as we expect God to forgive our nation. May all politicians stand before God with a forgiving and remorseful heart, forget about partisanship, bulling and calling each other names and stand before God with a clean heart for the good of the nation and future generation.
Zimbabwe turns forty in the month of April this year and there are those who are turning forty years of age who have not known prosperity except hunger and many other shortcomings, just as the Israelites who were born in the wilderness and had not known either Egypt or the Promised Land of Canaan.
Wilderness was their home just as there are those children born in squatter camps who need proper accommodation and a chance to own a better house and those who have not seen the face of a wage or payslip due to non availability of employment. But this is only possible if we all surrender earnestly to God in faith and forgiveness. Good things do not just happen because time is ripe but we have to work for the good to come to pass.
Pastor Tembo (richardtembo@ymail.com)
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