When Is God?

by Paul Chuks

Jordan Bebek

When the ulcer in the stomach disappears after a holy visitation from the prophet’s hands. Or when the vehicle tumbles thrice before landing to a crash, as though an invisible spirit launched it from the back — leaving everyone dead but you.

Only that the ulcer reneged three months after the testimony and, people died in that crash.

*

After the trailer had crushed other vehicles — yanking them off its way — the way you imagined Goliath would David were it not a stone fight, your right hand was split and three of your left fingers were what was left of you after realizing on that scalding floor that looked like it bled you had evaded death. Other passengers had cottoned on to the afterlife.

You were en route to Lagos to sing the praises of Jesus. Not because there aren’t churches saturated like trees around doing the job. Not because people of Lagos are oblivious to the gospel of Christ. Not because your Christianity was purer and more authentic — as in Paul-commanded — but because it’s a moral assignment your church undertook annually. And the thought of disobeying God stalked your mind that you dreamt of Jonah, how he survived in the fish’s stomach, without food, air, water, if you would and for how many days?

Among other brethren, you were the most fervent. If the church fasted six hours, you went twelve. You memorized all the verses in Psalm 119 and could reel them out like a park of cards, on request. You had toured the length and breadth of the country, evangelizing, at times escaping the viciousness of those who served other Gods. You were known around town for your white robe, evangelism was your cosmic assignment. In selecting the people for the mission, the pastor looked no further, guessed no harder, bro Amos, you’ll lead this team to Lagos to remind them of the gospel.

The driver began the journey with a breakneck speed that made you think he was in a competition with something fast as light. The speed blurred your vision; you wondered how he drove without having problems seeing forth. You cautioned him a few times, but the way he coyly skipped past vehicles and road blunders tickled you. It sometimes felt like the car was flexible and could slant itself when sandwiched between two vehicles and could snake away. You had prayed for journey mercies, and the grace of God when needed. This grace meant that in the event of any casualty, you would be safe. After all, grace was the added, unspoken benefit of Christianity; that ghostly spirit lurking around, in your front, clearing your path; that person in flesh opening career doors that would have otherwise been jammed close, left to your resumé; that wad of cash you suddenly find in pants you have not worn since Obama was president, just when the economy is having its hand around your neck and your last born needs money for school fees. This grace your son would call partiality because it all bordered on self-centeredness and cheating and God is supposed to be benevolent? Why should you get a job your CV can’t earn you in the first place? Shouldn’t your resumé getting one a job be the norm? How about those whose CV would earn them the job but couldn’t get it because you have it now from “grace?” he said when you got the job at the oil company through a coursemate that had risen to the echelon of powers at the company. You would lampoon him for blaspheming against God: you can’t understand the ways of God, he works in mysterious ways. He’d dart into his room and curl into himself.

The motor crash happened because the trailer had lost its brake and the road was so narrow that it could only take two vehicles coming and going. Your vehicle was going, the trailer was coming. It had crumpled other vehicles at the front. It crumpled yours. Everyone else was sent to their makers. You were spared. At the hospital, your son, Bezalel, sat — watching you, cursing life, eyes swimming in the water of his whole body. He wished it happened to him instead. He loved you that much, except when you started enforcing God on him. The doctor said your first three fingers on your left hand were totally scrunched beyond repair and nothing else could be done about them except having them cut. Too much for your boy to take, he screamed the building down such that even patients who had been unconscious for years sprang awoke and almost confronted him until they saw you injured, drenched in blood, falling limbs. When is God? When does he intervene in our lives? In 2020, my brother was hit by a tricycle, he hasn’t walked since then. Now this! This! he ululated. The doctors escorted him out of the emergency room and begged him to calm down or risk having a nervous breakdown. You should even thank God he survived it. Some other patients that were rushed in by the traffic police died before they got laid on the bed. Your father has the holy spirit in him. Bezalel felt for a second a tightening in his stomach then questions flooded his head. The three doctors who initially came out to console him withdrew like pawns in chess games until it remained one. He seemed to care, the lanky man, with gaunt face and greening teeth and a color Bezalel couldn’t place. His consolation didn’t seem like the mandatory doctor-patient obligatory soapbox on the need to chest the pain and move on with life. He heard Bezalel’s earlier ululations in the emergency room and was ready to indulge him. Why did my father’s holy spirit leave others to die? Why didn’t it stop the trailer? Did his fingers break too? Didn’t the holy spirit do a bad job, letting him injure? The doctor stood like a pole and stared blankly.