God, can I ask you a few questions?

God, ever since I was born, I have been extremely worried about certain things in the world. Today, I would like to ask you a few, harmless questions about what has been bothering my mind all these years.

I know I’m not supposed to ask you questions. If my elders see me asking you these questions, they may disown me, for these are questions for elders, and not toddlers like me. But let me take advantage of their absence to ask you. God, your word says in Hosea 4:6 (New Standard Version): ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge ...’ I do not want to perish; that is why I want to ask you for answers to these questions.


God, Genesis 1:1 says that you created the world on your own volition and accord. Verses 3-24 say you commanded, ‘Let there be ...’, and everything appeared. So, you can command them to disappear, and they will. These are powerful and wonderful traits that are beyond our human understanding.


But, God, I have been wondering how and why you created me and my race they way you did. I hope you will not punish me for asking you these questions. God, if you find the questions haphazard and inconsistent, with some kinds of repetition, don’t mind me, it’s because I’m, in fact, confused. These are the questions:


Question #1: God, who created you? By the cosmological argument (the argument that everything that exists must have a cause or a beginning), I do conclude and accept that you created the world, otherwise, I enter into infinite regress. The infinite regress argument made our elders warn us not to think about who created you, or else we would go mad. But, today I am asking: who created you?


Question #2: Because of the intricacies of Question #1, I do admit that you created yourself and the universe, that is, the world and everything in it. But my question is: did you create all human beings equal? The Bible says, in Genesis 1:26-27, that you created man in your own image. It didn’t say ‘black’, ‘white’ or ‘brown’ man, which implies we are all equal. God, did you, in fact, create all of us equal?

Question #3: God, if you created all of us equal, why did you create me and my race ‘black’ and others ‘white’ and some ‘brown’? And why did you allow others to make black represent evil and white represent good? Now, we’re even running away from our own colour, our hair and even our names.


Question #4: God, did you create me and my race to suffer all our lives? All around the world, from Africa to America through Asia to Europe, the people who suffer most are blacks, why?


Question #5: God, why did you allow your beloved children to be enslaved, packed in ships like cargo across the Atlantic Ocean? Why didn’t you give us enough strength, power and knowledge to resist our enslavement? Even when they were building the slave ships, you knew what they were going to use them for, but you gave them more brain power to build them, why? God, do you remember these three ships: Pinta, Nina and Santa Maria?


Question #6: God, did you create me and my race (Black race) to be unintelligent and poor? Some have linked intelligence to race, and that we are naturally less intelligent. Per the development patterns around the world, it appears you did not give us enough brains to be able to develop ourselves and that you wanted us to be beggars. From toothpick to toilet roll, God, we import everything, why?


Question #7: God why did you create us to survive on aid all this while? It’s been estimated that since the 1940s Africa has survived on over US$ 1 trillion worth of aid from developed countries. God, is that how you created us?

Question #8: God, I know that you gave us so much wealth in Africa – good soil, oil, gold, bauxite, diamond, timber, sea, salt, all kinds of food crops, etc. However, it appears that you didn’t give us enough brains to make proper and good use of these resources. It’s just like giving a homeless man a mansion without its keys. Your children are starving amidst vast wealth sitting on our continent. God, why?


Question #9: God, did you create us to be so corrupt such that when we become leaders, we can steal from the state coffers and enrich ourselves at the expense of the poor? God, why is it that there is so much bribery, fraud, influence peddling, extortion, kickbacks, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, embezzlement, vote buying, and election rigging in our part of the world? Did you intentionally create us so?


Question #10: God, is it true that you make kings and leaders? If it’s true, God, don’t you think you’ve not treated us well? Why have you always chosen for us greedy, selfish leaders who are so corrupt that they make incalculable wealth at the expense of the majority who are poor?


Question #11: God, did you create us to kill, slaughter and massacre one another? For thousands of years, your beloved children have been killing one another. Why do you allow that? Why do you look on and allow your children to be killed so cruelly? From what the Bible says, I believe you can change our minds within a twinkling of an eye, and we’ll begin to love one another such that there will never be any wars again. Why don’t you want to do that for us?


Question #12: God, why don’t you command good to triumph over evil in this world, especially in our part of the world, Africa? I believe you can say, ‘Let there be good over evil’, and it will.

Question #13: God, so why did you, after creating the world, put us almost symmetrical on both sides of the equator, such that Africa is so hot?


Question #14: God, why did you allow diseases, especially Ebola, to tear us apart? Why do you allow almost all the evil things in our part of the world to flourish and make us so poor, to the extent that we remain ‘a scar on the conscience of the world’? Is it to glorify your name? Or is it because you want only us to enter your kingdom, seeing that ‘It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven’?


Question #15: God, can you and are you ready to turn the tide in our favour? Can you command the wrong things to disappear from our minds, our blood and our nature, and implant the good ones in us? Indeed, if you give us the same intelligence you gave to the ‘Whiteman’, or even more, don’t you think we’ll be very grateful?


Question #16: Or what can we do to deserve your favour so you can change things for us? Are we not serving you right? We go to church, we go to mosque, we pray and we pay our tithe. In fact, we even appear to believe in your existence and power more than the ‘Whiteman’. In everything we do, we call on you first because we believe that everything is by you and for your glory; yet we don’t seem to get any reward; you seem to support the ‘Whiteman’ more than you do us. Is there anything we’re not doing right?


Question #17: Some even say we’re a cursed race. God, is that true? God, even if we’ve sinned against you, Daniel 9:9 says ‘To you the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness’, so why don’t you forgive us? Or aren’t you merciful and forgiving anymore?

Question #18: God, are we not serving you right? What’s the right way to serve you? Question #19: Or God, do you feel disappointed in us? In fact, sometimes I have a feeling that we worry you too much and you must be tired, but because you’re not talking to us we don’t even know whether we’re worrying or helping you.


Question #20: God, can you change the course in our favour? We need change, for your children are dying; your black children are traumatised; your children feel neglected. We need your intervention. Please, if you didn’t create us the way we are, tell us what we can do to get out of the quagmire and woes in which we find ourselves.


God, I assure you that if you give me answers to these questions, I’ll let your children hear them, so that we can act accordingly. I am waiting to hear from you. Until the answers come, thank you for listening to the questions in the first place.