It’s all in the laps of men: Clean up your mess, By Felix Nyerhovwo Jarikre

Is it not instructive to hear that God cannot start or originate your poverty or financial hardship? Does it not feel liberating to hear that the cause of any evil happening in any person’s life cannot  be traced to God?

That God has no hand in the roots of domestic violence in homes? That God CANNOT start or originate all the wars and plagues wasting humanity?

So if God cannot be held responsible  for any man’s feelings of VICTIMIZATION, frustrations, anxieties, insecurities, perplexity and pain,   where do we fix the  blame for our stalemates or challenges? Can we blame the devil? If we blame the devil for the accidents, the deaths, the penury, the greed, the fears  that make the majority of humanity to be miserable and tortured, does that remove the need for us not to take responsibility, and seize control over our lives?

Why are we so quick to believe the  lie that God is READY TO CLEAN UP OUR MESS after we have messed up? Why do we find it easy to think God is available to REPAIR our failures  after we have failed? No doubt, hearing that God is ready and willing to clean up our mess, and repair our failures sound good in the ears of many. But it’s an elaborate myth. The Bible doesn’t support it.

At the end of the Versailles Peace Conference, President Woodrow Wilson wrote to his wife: “Well, little girl, it is finished; and as so no one is satisfied, it makes me hope we have made a just peace, perhaps  it’s all in the lap of the gods.”

Having lost the WW1, Germany was treated as the guilty party through the Versailles Peace treaty; and made to “accept the responsibility” for war damages suffered by the Allies. Heavy war reparations were imposed on Germany where it had to pay a huge sum of money. The treaty stripped Germany of 13 percent of its territories. Germany lost its colonies. To any reasonable observer, it was clear the treaty was  extremely harsh on Germany; and that the nation would suffer economic ruins as a result.

Many Germans, including Adolf Hitler, felt deeply humiliated and angry when they learned of the contents of the treaty from the newspapers and radio.

President Woodrow Wilson as President of the U.S. helped to facilitate the Versailles Peace Treaty. In some ways, he was tactically played by France and Great Britain. He himself wrote to his wife: “No man is satisfied.” Yet he dared to “hope we have made a just peace, perhaps it’s all in the lap of the  gods.”

Very typical. After we have allowed our greed and fears to dictate our decisions while neglecting the wisdom of God, we then make room for God to take up the slack over our mistakes. Oh yes, we are that smart!

No sir, satisfactory peace-making is not in the laps of the gods!
Satisfactory peace-making on earth is in the laps of men!

So it’s not surprising to note that it was the Versailles Peace Treaty that stoked the emergence of Adolf Hitler who prepared to wage World War 2 on the fires of vengeance.

Just yesterday, Nigeria’s Defence minister called for God’s intervention in the fight against insurgents and terrorists. Oh yes, we all like to pray: so let us pray.

Let’s conveniently ignore the diversion and misapplication of funds meant to prosecute the war against terrorists.
Let’s ignore the corruption and the many malfeasances that characterized the waging of this war. Yet let us pray for divine intervention. After all, “What God cannot do does not exist” is an evil strain that permeates every religious teaching ignorant of the blood of Christ: and the eternal inheritance given to men.