From Wilderness to Independent

Some months ago the southerners have been living in wilderness under the yoke of former oppressor. When God plans time comes, He encourages his children in the south to make the determination decision of freeing themselves from exploiter who enslaved them for so long.

But because of human weakness, such children who have been crying to the LORD for liberation quickly forgotten God mercy upon them and despised God intervention in their affairs. First they began to complain about God leadership upon them, arguing that everyone is free to do whatever he wishes and no need for God appointed leaders to rule over them, everyone hoped to lead even though he was not appointed by God to lead. Consequence to their complaint God brought terrible punishment upon these rivalry men. Here lets compare our situation with what happened to Israelites and observe carefully the words of God which appointed leader, Moses uttered to rebellious men ‘'if they die natural death and experience only what usually happen to men, then the LORD has not sent me. But if the LORD brings about something new, and earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know that these men have treated the LORD with contempt. As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and earth opened its mouth and swallowed them with their households and all Korah's men and all their possessions. They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community'' (Num.16:29-33).

In this passage we could learn a good lesson that opposing God plans will bring misfortunate on our lives. Today among us some people assume that they were liberators, who brought independence of the south, but they failed to give honor to God who kept them well while in wilderness. Here we need to question ourselves, does God gives those ‘liberators' mandatory power to exploit the people who they had liberated? What is a different between our claimed liberators with former oppressor's government in Khartoum? Our dishonest personal ambition will reduce us into nothing like Korah and his supportive men who tried to dismantle God institution which he established. Truly, it is not against God plans if you wish to aspire for leadership position but it should be done in right manner and in peaceful way rather than destructive means, knowing that God is the one who changes leadership and gives it to next person who will lead his people as he wishes. But many people want to reach leadership positions by all means whether by killing their own subjects, or misleading people in leadership with wrong malicious advice, in order to please such bosses to maintain them in green pasture positions, so that they may enrich their empty pockets. Some folks are being hospitalized in Juba when their names never appeared in the list of expected appointed ministers, why? Because they see that holding ministerial positions are only shortcut to reduce their poverty immediately, whether they are qualified or not is not the issue. Nevertheless, they want to reach to those high positions not to serve but to be served. Korak was ready to sell his wrong ambition for leadership to the people who died innocently without known the true color of the problem.

Second image of wilderness, people complained to Moses about food and they prefered being slaves in Egypt rather than being free human being with dignity and all rights which were denied by oppressors in the past. This is what Israelites said to Moses ''it would be only good if we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt, there we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death''(Ex.16:3).

Another lesson we could learn from mentioned verse is that if we base our lives totally on merit, then for sure we will be enslaved by wealthy people, and also in the process we could approve wrong things initiated by bosses that are corrupted and that can consume us later. The food is something devil first used to tempt Jesus, the devil said to Jesus, ‘' if you are Son of God, tell this stone to become bread, Jesus answered, it is written man does not live on bread alone'' (Lk.4:3-4). Food is important for our well being but it should not master our lives. I still remembered during NIF government some of southerner's politicians changed their faith because of merit and they were stamped. So we must encourage ourselves that we had brought nothing into this world and we will take nothing out of it. Therefore, if we have something to eat and a cloth to wear we must be content with that. For Bible put it clearly that ‘'people who want to get rich (wrongly) fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many grieves'' (1 Tim.6:9-10).

Israelites were ready to remain slaves in Egypt as long as they receive their meat daily even if they were exploited and discriminated by the master. Today we have some people among the southerners who think the same way, and cannot imagine that they can stand even one day without receiving food from former master. They are ready to surrender their will to exploiter for luxury live they acquire wrongly. Today you find many people weaving from one camp to another in order to achieve their sick intention, such people have no principles in life, and they are toxic and poisonous to the society for their interest matters a lot. In wilderness people learnt individualistic life and everybody was much concerned about his own well being and that had created vacuum, and forced unmindful people to be corrupted.

The wilderness tendency weakness, caused Moses God appointed leader to ruin himself with public affairs daily because he failed to delegate powers to other capable leaders among the community, who could shoulder some responsibilities on his behalf. Moses thought he could do all services to God people without shared those tasks with other people. But we thank God, who convicted Moses to hearken to the wisdom of his in-law, Jethro (seeEx.18:13-26). Jethro told Moses that if he is willing to hearken to his advice, let him called for elder people and chose among them seventy worth respected people, and appoint them as judges who could deal with small problems which the people bring to him and he could deal with big issues. By doing that you could reduce the pressure on yourself and you could not make people to wear out in waiting queue. The wilderness mentality of Moses is being seen in our nascent nation, whereby many assignments are given to one particular person, who could not manage to perform them, or giving all chances to specific group in expense of other communities. This behavior will lead us into confrontation and unrest circumstance in our new nation.

Therefore, if we want the Republic of South Sudan to be stable nation in Africa, let avoid shortcoming of the wilderness which we had experience so long, and try to discard anything that divide us and uphold things that unite us. Lets learn to appreciate and acknowledge any contribution made by anyone among us whether we are in agreement with him or in disagreement. We should not think of rewriting history of struggle in the south to fit our own ambition, for that will deepen and widen the gap between us. We should consider qualifications in this critical moment, so that we may put right person in right place, who may service the interest of our nascent nation. Could we take Jethro advice as very important to us, so let begin to delegate power to capable people who will lead our nation to mount higher in the world.