We need to pray against our leaders’ bad deeds for God to bless Kenya

We cannot stop you from praying if that, indeed, is what you genuinely purpose to do. Prayer is everyone’s right. In fact we can only encourage everyone to pray, and especially the villainous. Praying is indeed the right thing for everybody to do, always. Yet do we also have the duty to admonish each other that prayer is not levity? Do we need to remind ourselves that it is futile to mount a huge and decorous show of piety once every 365 days and spend the next 364 days acting against what we prayed for?

Do we need to address the futility of Sunday appearances in houses of prayer without contrite souls within? Perhaps we need to caution, as we have often done, on the futility of some prayers? That some prayers only rankle God and he who says them could pay heavily for saying them? I have read where Moses was told to tell the Children of Israel, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name (Exodus 20: 7)”.

I have also read where Paul of Tarsus wrote to the Early Church: “I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind. I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind. If you are praising God with your spirit, how can one who finds himself among those who do not understand say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving (1 Corinth: 14:14)?”

Prayer is a recurrent refrain in my writing. Every season, I must return to this chorus, in the reason and rhyme of my tour of duty. I must remind us that when your thoughts, words and actions are counterpoised against your prayer, it is best to ask God to reform you. If you are the problem in the situation that you are praying about, it helps if you pray for your own reform before you can pray for anything else. But perhaps you sincerely do not know that you are the problem? Then it helps if you pray that God should open your eyes and mind, so that you can see the true problem. For when you recognise the true problem, the situation is one step closer to resolution.

Every so often, these past eight or so years, the Kenyan political top brass meets in an exclusive assembly for prayer. This is a good thing to do. It suggests that this class recognises the supremacy of God and the need for divine intervention in the affairs and life of the nation. This gesture begins to restore our hope in the possibility that this class could still redeem itself before man and God. But it hardly goes beyond that.

The mismatch between prayer and action is not lost upon us. This class seems to be sworn to driving the country towards ultimate dislocation and disaster. They remind us of the saying in the Biblical book of Job, “When a country’s leadership falls into the hands of the wicked, he blinds its judges. If it is not he, then who is it (Job 9:24)?

Kenya needs to pray against the wicked spirit of greed and self-seeking pursuits among the leaders amidst debilitating poverty. We need to pray against leaders’ unending ploys to empty the National Treasury into their private pockets. They need to pray against crippling thirst for power and wealth in the National Assembly.

When the national leadership meets in exclusive circles to pray for Kenya, it helps if they reflect on the tax burden on the ordinary citizen and the gap that the use of tax has opened between the rich and the poor. The assembly needs to pray against the wicked spirit of tribalism that drives appointment and promotion in the public service. The people in such an assembly need to say to God, “God, we know we are the problem. We know that the people of this country are poor because it has been our wish that they should be poor. We know, God, that there is insecurity because our greed has created fertile ground for insecurity. Forgive us God for thinking only about our stomachs, even when they threaten to burst at the seams. Make us good and just leaders, God.”

If they ignore this and go on to ask God to bless Kenya, God will say to them through Isaiah the son of Amoz, “Hear the word of God you rulers of Sodom: Listen to the word of God you people of Gomorrah! The multitude of your sacrifices, what are they to me? I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened bulls.”

God will say to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, “ When you come to appear before me, who has said this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me . . . I cannot bear your assemblies and your appointed feasts.”

God will tell Kenya’s leaders, “When you spread out your hands in prayers, I will hide my eyes from you. Even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight. Stop doing wrong. Learn to do right. Seek justice. Encourage the oppressed. Defend the case of the orphans. Plead the case of the widow (Isaiah 1: 10 – 17).”

In the end, prayer without genuine concern about the cause of the problem is an exercise in futility. Yes, Kenya has a problem. The problem is simply and squarely a matter of poor, self-seeking-ethnic-and-greed-driven leadership. This has been our curse from independence to date. When our leaders refrain from the injustice that greed drives, we shall cease screaming at God to “bless our country,” as if God is deaf. We shall instead assemble to sing to God and make joyful noises in praise of his Almighty name and for the wonders of his blessings to us all.