God

Luke 1 : 46-47

46 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

Psalm 33 : 4

4 For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.

In every human interaction, the time element is consequential. There is a moral issue surrounding the idea of time and its management. If any system is to survive to a sustainable level, the time element has to be highly respected. For example, in creation, the almighty Allah set a time frame for himself to complete the challenging task of creation.

From the perspective of the Holy Quaran 57 : 4 ‘’ He it is who created the heaven and the earth in six days. Then after he established himself on the throne…..'' The above implies, the job was highly satisfactory for the almighty Allah to set a parable of quality and standard, tested and trusted before assuming and adopting for use.

In our own reality of life the time element is trivialized in our attitude towards work and in fulfilling the covenant of timely delivery of the rendered service to the disappointment of whoever must have given us the opportunity of winning such contract, forgetting that successful productivity process is a function of the time element involved to avoid lose of goodwill for the industry or the establishment. In the same vein when we make promises or get into an oath of commitment we must not lose the sight of respecting the contracted time element otherwise associated disappointment may lead into unwarranted feud that may snowball into avenging through killing because the time element associated with the contract was not respected not to talk of been fulfilled. This is why there is the saying, respect for time is the soul of business. The nation is losing a lot of goodwill in the Ministries, Departments, Agencies and Parastatals because of our poor attitude to work, whereby six out of the eight working hours are wasted on gossiping at the expense of work output and the accompanying salaries which in most cases are fixed without any regard for the volume of work done, not to talk of the expected standard and quality. The politicians forming government do not even care about institutionalizing respect for the culture of having regard and respect for the time element as a function of good production index. Is it not a challenge for humans to submit that the lesser animals respect time in everything they do, just like the almighty Allah respect the time frame in His benevolent mystery of creation. For example in Quaran 13 : 8 ‘’ Allah doth know what every female womb doth bear, by how much the womb fall short of their time or number or do exceed. Every single thing is with him in due proportion.’’

For humans the gestation period is for 9 months, for the hen, the incubation period is 21 days. The respect for time frame is a manifestation of the fact that the person is highly disciplined when he makes a promise or take to an oath he would never disappoint and when such people are given an opportunity to serve they would go about it through arousing conscience which is sacrosanct to service delivery to the satisfactory end without default.

The Holy Bible makes us to realize that there is a right time for everything and everything on earth would happen at the right time. Eccl. 3 :1–8 proffers that we manage our lives through minimax theory of managing time of events. When they are good we maximize to sustain and when they are bad we regulate and control to minimize or eradicate through timely intervention because of the elements of bearing, planting , healing, building, laughing, dancing out of joy, peace, achievements and love are good elements of life that would ever nurture the nature of man into buoyant and glorious success of development.

However, the elements of death, destruction , crime, sadness, war and hate are equally elements of life associated with disappointment which may brew darkness into the life of any mortal for untimely death. When time is therefore respected in going about activities by the Muslims ‘ respect for the observance of solat or prayer or our general ability to participate in rescuing other people’s life from ruin through timely intervention based upon the concept of philanthropy, caring and sharing, one is easily thrown into an ecstasy of getting fulfilled with the attendant joy and happiness radiating love on our faces. Let us be timely in doing our jobs for us to be Godly in our religious exercises as disciplined and morally conscious persons.

Two things are very germane in the functionality of the religious sector for it to serve the expected responsibility of promoting the culture of institutional discipline, moral uprightness and consistence arousal in ensuring that due process of the fear of God is followed in discharging individual or collective duties of whatever capacity of operation we may find ourselves . They are the adherents of every religion and their places of worship. For the adherents, a high level of piety based on the factors of reliability and dependability which equally are functions of the individual’s integrity which equally anchors on the soul purification essence from all evil thoughts and body preservation from sins and crimes for them to be eligible to enter their houses of God.

The Holy Quaran 4 : 17–18 refers ‘’ Allah accept the repentance of those who do evil in ignorance and repent, soon afterwards will Allah turn in mercy : for Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom. 

However, of no effect is the repentance of those who continue to do evil, until death faces one of them and he says ‘’now have I repent indeed’’, nor of those who die rejecting faith : for them have we prepared a chastisement most grievous.’’

On the statues of every house of God, the state of sacredness is equally germane, if we need to go by the demand of God on this, through Quaran 9 : 17–18 ‘’It is not for such as join gods and goddesses or associating partners with Allah, to maintain the mosques(house of God)of Allah while they witness against their own souls to infidelity.

The works of such bear no fruit : in fire shall they dwell.

Therefore, the mosque of Allah or the house of God, shall be visited and maintained by such as believe in Allah. It is they who are expected to be on true guidance.

A general view in the situation of many houses of God and the adherents show a negative compliance with affronts, effrontery and defiant impunity, making a good God/man relation to be elusive in the land and making the inhabitants or humanity generally, to be vulnerable or susceptible to various unwarranted attacks-visible and invisible.

The Holy Bible, 1 Cor. 13–13 makes this particular submission that there is faith in the name of religion and hope through just worship only in realizing the dividends of religious practice.

However, the only condition under which this design of God can be sustainably beneficial is an environment of love, unfortunately, humanity is daily faced with challenges of hostilities making us to be people of blurred visions with ignorant politics of deceit that is usually consuming people, making all efforts to be thrown into the dustbin of waste.

There is a dire need therefore, for all clerics to go back to the drawing board to revisit their curricula of the scriptures and restrategize to teach the adherents and the society objectively without bias of any sort in order that we are able to reawaken all agents of socialization to be alive to their God given responsibilities. No religion teaches evil, no scripture does mislead.

 For sanity to reign let us all fear God to be able to put up exemplary lifestyles.

Prof. Sabitu Olagoke

Founder, Spiritual Head and Grand Imam Shafaudeen-in-Islam Worldwide,Wakajaiye, Ibadan, Nigeria