WHOSE BATTLE IS GOD'S?

By Taiye Olaniyi

All sorts of battles are raring their heads and raging today. In the lives of individuals, communities, nations and global geopolitics is one battle royale or the other.

Are you and I engaged in one battle or the other and if yes or no, at what stage do you involve God in whatever way your battle is?

In this stream of life nothing goes easy and in order to succeed and live life abundantly we all must be ready to face the numerous challenges of life. We all must be battle ready to combat failures in whatever way we think and are convinced. There are health, financial, economic, sociocultural, class and political challenges everywhere with everyone to battle with.

Our world, the world and this world of ours today is full of strifes, very tumultuous and agonizing, full of miseries and the mystery now is, whose battle is of God or may I say is God's? Think about it.

The mystical approach to the battle on God's side is to ensure being in harmony with nature and humankind. If and when in harmony with nature realizing that its laws are immutable, be religious and / or the none of it, such a positive interplay equally guarantees good health, community relationships, sociocultural interactions, ethnic and tribal affiliations without hatred to others.

To what extent are we truly in harmony thus breaking the shackles of ignorance, superstitious beliefs, religious superiority and / or inferiority, lands acquisition and dispossession over land and space from time immemorial?

How does our only and just God, the Creator of every living being everywhere be involved in the unjust battles emanating in political governments and styles of governance, the blatant misrule in governance world over in tenures and eras when the poor are getting poorer and the rich getting richer in corruption and man's inhumanity to fellowmen?

Bob Marley and the Wailing Wailers once observed the scenarios around the world and he sang about the battlefields of life:

"....That until there are no longer first class

and second class citizens of any nation.

Until the color of a man's skin

is of no more significance than the color of his eyes

Me say war.

That until the basic human rights are equally

guaranteed to all, without regard to race

A dis a war.

That until that day

the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship

rule of international morality

will remain in but a fleeting illusion

to be pursued, but never attained

Now, everywhere is war, war."

Further to these arrays he equally submits that peace in battles could come but not only until the ignoble and unhappy regimes their attitudes toward fellow beings in politics, economic and religious inclinations are battled and replaced by joint task "Of good over evil -

Good over evil, yeah!

Good over evil -

Good over evil, yeah!

Good over evil -

Good over evil, yeah!

Then comes the societal, global and world order to peace profound.

If only we would all agree to seek for the one and only God from the domain of self, therein lies the true battle that ensures God's support and victory.

Therefore as a Muslim mystic once instructs, "Seek in your own heart and you will find your God revealed."

In that instance I conclude in the admonition of a Sufi mystic, "He who is of God, of God pursued."

May the Greater Light which every child of God truly seeks lead us all to Light, Life, Love and the way to Peace Profound.

Taiye Olaniyi, a retired Postman of the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos