Hopeless Prayer

Praying all day, every day bodes well for a career as a priest, or even as one of those businessmen qua pastors who try to sell tap water in a bottle as “Holy Water” just like Michael Jordan’s “secret stuff ” from the movie Space Jam; however, non-stop prayer is not a sensible way to run a country, if no other steps are taken.

Are we expecting God to descend from the heavens and say “abracadabra” or touch the heads of the leaders, so that they suddenly get the same ideas that people like Professor Ramesh Deosaran have been telling them about all these years? You would think that after decades in Parliament, the current Government would have hit the ground running and cleaned up this place, but since taking office, Rowley’s response to, and plan for every problem in this country has been “pray for...” In June 2016, he asked the country to pray for oil and gas. Then in September 2016, he asked citizens to attend a day of prayer at the Queen’s Park Savannah to pray for higher oil prices and for the Opposition to vote for FATCA .

And then, in his Christmas message, Rowley again asked the country to pray for the families who lost a family member to violent crime, which his Government has failed to combat. And I have been praying for at least one member of the People’s Partnership to go to jail for corruption, but they are all still out goading us with their very existence.

Is it that God is not listening and/or answering, or is it that we’re not heeding His advice? This reminds me of the story of a very religious man who was once caught in rising floodwaters.

The man climbed onto the roof of his house and prayed for God to rescue him. A neighbour came by in a dinghy and said, “The waters will soon be above your house.

Hop in and we’ll paddle to safety.” “No thanks,” replied the religious man, “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me.” A short time later the police came by in a boat. “The waters will soon be above your house.

Come on board and we’ll take you to safety.” “No thanks,” replied the religious man, “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me.” After a while, a rescue helicopter hovered overhead, let down a rope ladder and said, “The waters will soon be above your house. Climb the ladder and we’ll fly you to safety.” But again, the religious man refused; instead relying on his utmost confidence that God would not ignore his prayers and eventually save him.

All this time the floodwaters continued to rise, until soon they reached above the roof and the religious man drowned. When the religious man got up to heaven, he let everyone know that he had a “bone to pick” with God and demanded to have an urgent meeting to discuss his demise.

At the meeting, the religious man asked: “God, why am I here in heaven? I prayed for you to save me, I trusted you to save me from that flood.” “Yes you did my child,” God admitted, “And I sent you a dinghy, a boat and a helicopter.

But you never got in.” In the end, prayer alone does nothing. If we just sit around praying, we might as well all buy magic lamps and rub them until a genie pops out of one – like lotto.

Everybody these days wants to hold an “anti-crime” prayer meeting or crusade – never, of course, failing to collect tithes and offerings at every gathering – with nothing to show for the prayers.

But it’s not God’s fault. God has answered those prayers; He has sent us all the right personnel and information we need, but those in power have chosen to ignore them.

He sent us Dwayne Gibbs and Jack Ewatski to head the police service, but they were chased away because citizens let the corrupt police people confuse them with nonsense.

He sent us economists to explain why diversification is important, but we look past that and pray for more oil. He opened our eyes to all the information about corruption in licensing, police, coast guard, prison, PTSC, and every government ministry under the last government, yet we ignore it and pray for a better country.

In the meantime, I’m going to pray for a totally new government . . .

and act accordingly.

j a - mille85@ msn.com