“Less Than Nothing Before The LORD!”

“Less Than Nothing Before The LORD!”(Is.40:12-17).
Heads of states or their representatives vied for space as they represented their nations at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. All the excitement of being present only reminded me of Gerald Durrell’s book, “The Bafut Beagles.” Durrell named the young men he hired to help him hunt the species on his wishlist, Beagles.
The Beagles assumed some airs of importance and superiority among their people. A Beagle could boast to his peers, “I am a Beagle!” The humour of it – which is a kind of dramatic irony – is that they prided themselves in being Beagles, thinking it was a title, when a beagle is a specie of hunting dog. What an insulting title! Durrell’s The Bafut Beagles can be retitled, “The Bafut Human Hunting Dogs!
Ever since the fire went out in London, there has been a lot of talk about who has to attend the funeral or not. Social media has been circulating videos of, and making a lot of noise about how Heads of States arrived the funeral ground. Typical of Orwell’s Animal Farm, all animals are equal, but some are more equal! So it’s no big deal if the President of the US of A arrived in the Beast. Another biting irony when we juxtapose the Beast of the president of a great nation and the beagles of Bafut. By the way, a beast provided the earliest form of transport and till date, all engine power are measured by it – horsepower!
We give praise and glory to God that all philosophical schools, all religions and denominational barriers were broken as all these delegates converged in a place of worship to bid farewell to a Great Monarch in a sanctuary of the LORD.
But at the same time the words of the legendary King Arthur to the last of his knights of the Round Table, Sir Bedivere comes to mind: “The old order changeth yielding place to new. And God fulfills himself in many ways. Lest one good custom should corrupt the world…If thou shouldst never see my face again Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”
If only we can see the futility of grandeur, the emptiness of opulence, the powerlessness in power and the inherent poverty of wealth, we would humble ourselves before God, the only omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent Divine Unmoved Mover! “Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing.” Turn to the LORD and be saved!
Prayer: LORD, I am not skilled to understand what you have planned or willed, but it is enough that Christ has set me free. Amen!
Have a blessed day! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.