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Oftentimes I do wish I do not have to do what I have now set out to do. Yes indeed , not very rarely,
I wish for myself I could keep my mouth shut and live my life quietly, out of the public view. As the clock of time
slowly but surely ticks the seconds away to become minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and finally years, so also my
heart, that all these years I have been on planet Earth has dutifully pumped blood to perfuse my body system, will be
at work to keep me and my body system alive.
A time will eventually arrive though when my very loyal friend, despite its astounding sense of duty,
will say to me in the face: 'enough is enough friend; the time has come for me to rest all my activity!' Deprived of
oxygen and nutrients following the call to strike by my wearied pump, my brain, the seat of the conscious Me, will have
no choice but to run down all its activities and go to bed.
My body system, no longer perfused with blood to supply it with nutrients and oxygen will soon face the
threat of decay. My loving family as a last respect to my honour, and also to save themselves the inconvenience of having
to live with the strongly offensive odour emanating from my decaying body will take steps to return my body to earth.
'Dust unto dust', the officiating minister will proclaim, before those who have gathered to bid one of
their own 'fare thee well', as earth is poured unto the casket bearing my mortal remains. My body put to rest, the Me
that has resided in it all this while will be left to face the Creator God. Yes, that I will one day have to stand
before the judgement throne of God of Heaven and Earth, I strongly do believe. Standly helplessly before Almighty God,
I will be left to His mercy to do with me poor Me whatever He deems fit.
Yes indeed I wish I did not have to do what I have set about to do. After all I do not have to earn my
living by way of it. True, I have in the past experienced a really hard life. Is it malnutrition bordered on starvation?
I have known it. Is it want and deprivation? I have experienced it. Is it abject poverty? I have lived through it. Yes
I have experienced all forms of hardships imaginable in my life. In particular the first two decades of my sojourn on
our distressed planet was anything but smooth. By the grace of the Everlasting Father, Friend of the poor however,
I have eventually made it to the club generally referred to in Germany as the 'Order of the gods in white'. Some members
of our group, apparently taking the terminology literally, have indeed made great strides to play the role of God the
Creator in the drama of life.
Here you observe them, in their sophisticated laboratories, as they invest tremendous energies in an
effort to create human beings to serve the purpose of medical research. There you read about them as they manipulate
genetic codes in their effort to free afflicted Mankind from the tentacles of all suffering; here and then you see some
of their representatives in primetime TV as they appear before the press in the halls of one luxurious hotel after the
other as they tred the globe to deliberate on matters afflicting tempest-tossed Mankind. During such rapports with the
media a good deal of bombasting speeches fill the auditorium as the prominent men and women of letters seek to reassure
an equally admiring audience that the cure for our strongest enemy, death, is not very far from the corner. The 'gods
in white!' They really deserve that accolade, for indeed they are a mighty force to reckon with!
Yes indeed by the grace of Almighty God I have trained to become a medical doctor. The title I bear alone
is enough to open doors to me in spheres of life where a poor farmers son from Mpintimpi would never have dared to
venture... So the Lord has catapulted me high on the social ladder, into the noble club of the scientific healers. Now
I am too old to make any fabulous inroads into the profession, to rise to become one of their shining stars - others may
use the word ’guru’ to describe such dazzlingly skilled. But one thing at least I am certain of is preventing the
unexpected event of the General Medical Council (the governing body of the profession in the United Kingdom) erasing my
name from the medical register. With this I will be able to practice my trade and earn enough money to feed myself and
my family both close and extended, in the African traditional sense
Even should the GMC of the country of Her Majesty the Queen, Head of the British Commonwealth, refuse me
permission to practice my profession on the British Isles, small in size but mighty in global influence, I could still
return to Germany, the land of Goethe and Schiller, the country that helped me to realise my dream of becoming a doctor,
but from where I recently moved in a last minute effort to prevent my General Practitioner Practice there going bankrupt
and seek to re-establish myself there.
Should the powers that be there also refuse me permission to practice my profession , I will turn to the
country of last resort, my native Ghana. Yes I will go back to my beloved Mpintimpi, the little settlement about
170 kilometres to the north of Accra, Ghanas capital, where my eyes first saw the light of day. I can rest assured that
my fellow villagers will warmly welcome me back home. True, they will not be capable of remunerating or repaying me in
accordance with the value of the services I offer them.
If only to make sure I earn my bread everyday, I could resort to a system based on a combination of cash payment and
barter: in return for services rendered, those not in a position to pay wholly by cash would be allowed to compensate
me partly or wholly with food items growing on their farm. Naturally, life at Mpintimpi will be a far cry from the
comfortable life style I am presently priviledged to enjoy in the the decadent West. Naked survival; the need to brave
the storms to make the best out of a precarious situation would provide enough motivation to spur me on.
Yes indeed I wish did not have to do what I have set out to do. After all how many thousand other
brothers - and sisters - in - Christ are bearing witness to the saving powers of Christ just as I sitting behind my desk
writing! Some of them have left the comfort of home for far away lands to live under very difficult conditions. May the
good Lord bless and sustain them As a matter of fact, I do wish I will live a quiet life and not expose myself to criticism
by doing what I have set out to do. Indeed there are a great deal of men and women walking on the surface of the earth who
have so hardened their hearts to the Word of God, should they, as they read through these lines, see the Lord Jesus Himself
appearing on the clouds, they will still refuse to believe in Him! If only they would leave matters at that level. But no!
Instead some among them have allowed themselves to be used as agents of the Enemy to hamper the effort of whoever sets out
to lift high the banner of the Cross of Christ.Through intervention, passive as well as active, through resistance, violent
as well as non-violent, through words that seek to discourage instead of motivate as well as several other vicious means the
Enemy works through them to achieve his purpose.Why then have you taken upon myself to tell others about the loving kindness
of the Lord, despite all the aforesaid? One may ask. The answer is simple - I just cannot keep my mouth shut in view of all
that the Lord has done in my life.
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In the New Testament there are several instances when the Lord after He had healed the sick charged them
to go home in peace and not to broadcast the news abroad. Did those affected keep to that instruction? As far as the
accounts in the Bible go, hardly any of them did. I can comprehend their actions. They acted not in disrespect to the
Saviour, but rather in line with human nature. In a situation where for example the ability to see has been restored to
the blind, where the dumb has been enable to hear and speak and where the lame has been privileged to stand up and walk
one can easily imagine the extent to which the beneficiaries of such Divine intervention would be overcome by their
emotions.
Perhaps the following illustration does not fit in perfectly into the picture; it is not completely out of
place though, I think. I am referring here to the game of football; known also as soccer. Needless to say, football is a
game of emotion and passion, a good example of a sporting avtivity that can sometimes see adults behaving like little
children. Imagine you are a keen lover of the game, watching a match in which your team stands on the verge of defeat.
Ninety minutes of play is over and they are trailing their opponents by a lone goal. The referee has allowed for three
minutes of injury time. You are getting ready to leave the stadium hardly able to control your tears when all of a sudden
a good chance comes the way of one of your strikers. Without any waste of time he hammers home a powerful shot that catches
the opponent goal keeper on the wrong feet. The ball crosses the goal line to hit the back of the net. Not believing your
eyes you spring out of your seat and begin to scream with joy. The dramatic turn of events wont end there! With a few seconds
left for play, just as the referee is about blow his his whistle to bring the meeting to an end your team scores a winning
goal!!Pandemonium breaks loose among players, officials and fans of the team that minutes earlier stood on the verge of
defeat. Some, among them even those counted among the prominent of society, in their joy yell on top of their voices, jump
into the air, dance around and even begin to roll on the grass!
A similar phenomena can be observed when the Divine intervenes in our lives to suddenly overturn a
situation which we have already given up for lost. Yes indeed when the spirit of the Living God visits the home of the drug
addict to instantly free him/her from the tentacles of the stuff he/she has developed an abnormally strong craving for.
When the Lord our Righteousness intervenes to cause a split second change of heart of the hard-core criminal; oh yes, when
the the Divine Shepherd frees us from of the the jaws of the Dragon just as the Monster, our Enemy, is about to crush us
into pieces, our joy knows no bounds.
I find my self in a similar situation! Indeed when I look back to reflect on my life, on where I came from
and where the Lord, in His Grace has so far led me, I can hardly keep back my emotions. My life indeed has been a great
miracle performed at the Hands of the Way, the Truth and the Life. Quite recently a Public Relations officer in Cologne
Germany I had met to solicit his services to help promote my books remarked:
"As someone from Africa, your parents must be very rich and influential to have been able to study to
become a doctor in Europe. How could you otherwise have managed to pay for your education in Germany?" In reply I told
him that what he thought about my parents was far from the truth. Neither mother who is no longer alive nor father still
living were rich or influential. No, they were simple impoverished peasants who struggled from the rise of the tropical
sun to its fall to feed themselves and their children.
'How then did you manage to come this far in life?' he wanted to know.
'I was elevated by Mighty Jesus!' was my reply.
Yes, Master Jesus picked me from the deep dark abyss of poverty I was born into and propelled me unto a
high land. Indeed He who has power over everything under the universe has elevated me from status nothing to position
something! Surely and certainly Master Jesus who has authority over all that is seen and unseen has promoted me from status
nonentity to status entity, from Mr Naught to Mr Top!! Not even the most optimist among optimists who witnessed the
circumstances of my birth could ever have imagined that I would today be sitting in the quite comfortable environments of
my home in far away England testifying to the glory of the Lord of Hosts. A crude makeshift structure that served our family
as the bathroom functioned as a labour ward as my dear mother struggled to press me out of the comfort of her womb into the
hazards of the tropical heat in little Mpintimpi. Not only was I born to the most humble settings one can imagine on planet
Earth, I was also born to one of the most impoverished couples that walked the surface of the earth at that time. Our
village did not boast a school, not even a primary school, so the school children there had to walk a total of about six
kilometres each day to Nyafoman to attend the primary school there. None of us boasted of either a pair of sandals or shoes.
When I got to the fifth class a mysterious disease afflicted my left ankle joint and seriously threaten my education.
Unable to walk the distance to Nyafoman and with no school bus around to pick me I had no choice but to stay away from
school. The interruption lasted for over two years.
Reader please do not accuse me of an advertisement break. Since I cannot here narrate to the full the
dramatic events that unfolded in my life from my birth to the time I entered medical schools, those who are interested to
know more are recommended to read my account in the book: THE CALL THAT CHANGED MY
LIFE (published in 2004 by iUniverse
Publishing,USA)
There is a saying in my native Twi language : boniaye kae dabi! Translated into English it means
approximately: 'You ungrateful spirit, look back to the past and remember!' While I cannot claim to be someone completely
devoid of the tendency to be ungrateful, for this very once at least, I do want to be counted among the grateful. So I want
to look back to the past, remember and be thankful. I do not want only to remember and be grateful, but also broadcast to
the world at large the loving kindness of He who was, and is, and evermore shall be. I find the need to do so particularly
urgent in view of the turbulent times unfolding before our eyes. Thus even though I will rather keep my mouth shut and live a
quiet life, yet in appreciation for all that the Lord of Lords and King of Kings has done for me in my life I have decided
to shout at the top of my voice:
Thank You Jesus,
Thank You Lord,
Thank you a million times
for making a stop at the home
of a worthless one like me.
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