LILIAN L. BEST
Africa-Press – Liberia. How about a little scriptural satire and political intrigue, this morning? If you will turn to the Book of Acts Chapter 9 verses 28 to 30, hallelujah! Also, 1 Samuel 10:18-22.
I believe in miracles! And on this fine, slushy Sunday morning, I know lightning can strike! Preferably somewhere around Baptist Theological Seminary. I can see it now, flashing through the windows of a certain church, in the middle of an incumbent President’s sermon, and surrounding him in unapproachable light. And, with angels singing songs only he can hear, he will fall on his face in holy ecstasy, and be instantly transformed, inside and out.
The miracle will continue Monday morning. He will fire his entire cabinet, save my favorite two, and replace them with people who can actually function in those capacities. Supernaturally, they will achieve in three months what no other leader has, in our 176 years as a state.
Thereafter, riding the wave of such astounding success, he will win the October elections by a landslide, and spend six more years effecting headspinning transformation. He shoots, he scores, nothing but net! How do you say that in football? I don’t know, whatever. We need to wake up from this reverie, because the miraculous transformation of character does not work that way.
Ask Saul and ask Paul, Old Testament and New. Both had divine encounters that released unto them spiritual gifts, a calling, and, for Paul, a change of perspective. But neither incident changed their behaviors. OT Saul, until the day he fell on his own sword, stayed as cowardly as he was when they first crowned him king. The people had to haul him from his hiding place “among the stuff” to anoint him. He fit the physical specs of a king, but lacked the requisite mentality. Can I preach?
By contrast, Paul’s strength of character helped him overcome ego as an impediment to impact. But that internal fight took time to win.
The guy gets railroaded by a risen Christ on the road to Damascus, you know the story… But your Muslim classmates probably know it better because they “dux” Bible class in school, every year, while y’all Xtians were loafing. Shade! I know. I’m sorry. And I say, “y’all” purely because I never had Bible class in school and was spared that inevitable embarrassment. But I digress.
Paul was too much for himself. The scales drop from his eyes and now thinks he can preach a Christ he’s only just met. But he couldn’t help it. His Type-A lawyer-scholar ego couldn’t handle being the only one on training wheels, while 10 former fishermen with crusty feet and broken Aramaic knew more than he did. Plus, having murdered their brother Stephen, he was an outcast among them.
Anxious to earn their respect, he leans on the star quality that the Pharisees had hailed him for – sophistication, zeal, and ambition. But he forgets he’s now an underdog, having left the ruling establishment. He takes actions that put himself and the rest of the disciples in unnecessary danger, and they have to effectively dismiss the guy and send his butt back home to Tarsus.
He spends between four and ten years there (the chronology is unclear), doing nothing of national note. Ask the most Type-A person you know how torturous a vacation can be — let alone a suspension — when their self worth is rooted in their reputation for hard work, passion, eloquence, and efficiency. The humiliation is staggering and their momentum extends outside them like a phantom limb with nothing to grasp.
Days go by and his people start asking questions. “So what exactly are you doing here? Nothing? You never do nothing; we don’t like this new you. We heard you quit your job as a Pharisee and now you have no political power, no money to bring home. What good are you, now?” He’s asking himself the same questions and no answers are coming. Maybe he’s making himself useful, teaching in nearby synagogues. But not to the who’s who he’s used to.
Now, add his mother to the mix. She enters the chat, lovingly annoying, “Well, why don’t you g’on and get a job at [insert terrible idea that only your mother could come up with, when your own ideas are as good as hers].” “Mom, please!” Then multiply that by four or ten years. Eloquent Paul, unable to give a fitting argument for his present and future, for that length of time, when even a month would have been maddening. But he stayed there. He let time crush his ego and render him content with insignificance. That, Liberia, was the miracle.
It was also his entrée into purpose. When reinstated to the Brotherhood, he spends many of his remaining days in much the same way. Yes, he did some itinerant ministry. But we learn more about him and God through his letters, which comprise nearly half the New Testament. He wrote them, sitting content and obscure in long stretches of imprisonment. And he considered himself, in the end, as having “fought the good fight, and won the race.” But the enemy that had assailed him most was within himself.
Is this what we envision when we ask for God-fearing leaders, Liberia? Or are we still enamored of megalomaniacs, political or episcopal, who speak in vibrato, can’t quote scripture a capella, but do nothing of real value?
Let’s set the pastors aside for now. Which of the candidates on our political field today can we say has submitted to the crushing miracle of self denial? And no, sitting silent in the midst of political crisis, while being bankrolled by men who can fly you out in private jets, does not quite count. Much less when you top that by accepting support from war criminals.
But, seriously, which of these candidates could truly be content in obscurity?
Is it the millionaire who burst upon a scene he still hasn’t deciphered, seven years on, but wants to stage manage? Or the political heiress who supported her father, knowing he was a dead man walking the country’s future to the grave with him? No, she did not choose his candidacy for him. But she chose to spend her time, effort, and social capital actively campaigning for him, telling Liberian women at an event I attended that her father, “is a liberator.” All because she wanted to be Ivanka.
Perhaps she didn’t know his cancer had returned. But she did know he had had it before, that it had been in remission, and that stress triggers relapse. The strain of a presidential campaign could have brought it back. Did she ask the pertinent questions and insist on her father’s medical vigilance and transparency? Maybe; she has not made the matter clear, one way or the other.
Either way, would her father’s supporters have voted for him, knowing he had only months to live? Possibly! Liberians are funny people, and we love to play Ludo with our future. We do it all the time; everybody picks a color, and we roll the dice. But would the public have preferred to have made a fully informed decision? Or does this heiress only believe in women’s right to choose, when such choices benefit her personally?
Maybe none of that matters, now. Most have already made their choices. I woke up this morning and made mine: George Weah, all the way!
Hear me out! The man has proven his humility, well before his election and everyday thereafter. Paul said he learned to be “content in plenty and in want.” So has our President. He has shown himself to be as content with dismal political failure as he was with immense athletic success.
Think about it! Taking no pride in his own global reputation, he has driven it from the stratosphere straight into the Earth’s crater. How can you not be impressed by such gravitational movement? Isn’t that what God did, when he sent his Son to Earth to die for our sins? Weah deserves a second chance to crucify himself before our very eyes. Then maybe, like Jesus, he can rise again and ascend into the clouds, shining in unapproachable light. Miraculous!
Come on, Liberia. God makes no sense sometimes. Jacob was a corrupt rascal but read Malachi 1:2-3 KJV:
“… I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.”
If we stick with our CIC, he can change. All it takes is for Weah to dribble himself like he’s playing Messi one on one. He shoots, he scores. Nothing but net! The crowd cheers. Game over.
Yours for true-true,
Source: Liberian Observer
For More News And Analysis About Liberia Follow Africa-Press
