GRATEFUL FOR EVIL?

Tonight, my pen is sleeping in its case.

There is, of course, the temptation to wake it up and make it do some work for me. But I have decided to take a moment to rest too. So, I won’t be writing at length tonight. Yet I’ll spare a thought.

Someone asked me if I am justifying slavery and colonialism. I looked at him and smiled. I didn’t utter a single word. My mind went back to a man that was sold into slavery. One day, he met with the very men that had sold him into slavery and looked eyes to eyes with them – tears welled up in his eyes. The pain was so excruciating because they were his own people. Not distant relatives, not cousins, but brothers – the sons of his father. There is a particular STING one feels when one’s betrayer is one’s own blood.

The young man thought of his past, his years as a slave, his wasted years in the dungeon and prison, he bowed his head and looked at his ankles, the thickened scars made around them by the iron shackles of his slave masters were still there. The ankle scars reminded him of the thicker ridges on his back. His back is a ploughed field with long ridges ready for planting. The ridges on his back were from toughened horse whips and hot iron.

But once more he raised his eyes and looked at his murderous brothers. He opened his mouth and stuttered the words, “But as for you,… ye thought… thought evil against me; ….but God… God meant your evil thought unto good…., to bring to pass, as it is this day, ….to save much people alive.” (Genesis 50: 20).

At those words his Chief Musician began to play the lyre… The band accompanied the tune sonorously with words that now make a new meaning to me…

Through many DANGERS, TOILS and SNARES

I have already come:

’tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

and grace will lead me home.

His heart was obviously full of gratitude but I pondered on his ancient words in modern language “Even though you planned evil against me, God planned good to come out of your evil plans. This was to keep many people alive, as he is doing now.”

I marvelled. What sort of man feels grateful to a God that made him pass through DANGERS, TOILS and SNARES? What sort of man feels grateful to a God that allowed him to be sold to SLAVERY? What sort of man feels grateful to a God that allowed his feet to be hurt by shackles? What sort of man feels grateful to a God that allowed his back to be RIDGED BY HOT METALS? He is certainly a man of deep understanding. It’s a DEPTH OF UNDERSTANDING I might never attain to.

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“They planned evil against us but GOD PLANNED GOOD TO COME OUT OF THEIR EVIL so as to keep many more people alive today as he is now doing”. A man without God in his heart cannot understand this.