26. Daily Life with God in Kenya
by Graham Kings
Date added: 02/09/2025
Scripts of my six radio meditations for the Voice of Kenya Daily Service (April 3-8, 1989) presented when I was Vice Principal of St Andrew’s Institute, Kabare, Kenya.
Jesus the Song of God (Mon 3 April 1989)
“That’s very good,” said the teacher to a little boy, “but what is it that you are trying to draw?”
“I’m drawing a picture of God.”
“Are you?”, said the teacher, “but no one knows what God looks like.”
“Well”, he replied, “they will know when I’ve finished my picture.”
We all have our own pictures of God, don’t we?
So, what is God like? At the Last Supper, Philip said to Jesus:
“Lord, show us the Father and we shall be satisfied.”
Jesus said to him: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.”
So, God is like Jesus. In Jesus, God was seen on earth, the perfect image or picture. Now, God is Spirit and so doesn’t have a body but to help us understand his character, and to save us, he sent us his Son. His Son was spirit and became man, spirit and flesh. So, Jesus was, and is, fully God and fully man. Not half God and half man, but fully both.
Since 1985, I have been teaching theology at St Andrew’s Institute, Kabare, in the Diocese of Mount Kenya East. Many times in class we have tried to explore how Jesus was divine and also human.
It is not easy, but one day, in class, we were thinking about songs and how they are both words and music. Often the words come first – the writer, or poet, has something to say – and then the tune is made up. As the song is sung, you can’t actually separate the words from the music. The song includes both words and music, beautifully bound up together.
Now Saint John, at the beginning of his Gospel, talks about the Son of God as the Word. He says: In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And later he says: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
In our class that day, we began to see how this could apply to the idea of a song. Jesus was fully God (the words of a song) and fully man (the music).
So, we reinterpreted those verses of John’s Gospel in this way: In the beginning were the Words and they were the Words of the Poet, and were part of him. And the Words became music and were sung, full of grace and truth.
Perhaps, then, we may think of Jesus the Son of God also as the Song of God.
Strange Horror of the Cross (4 April 1989)
A friend of mine was teaching her young daughters about Jesus. That week, she had told them a story a day about his final week in Jerusalem.
In the story this particular day, she said, “And the soldiers took Jesus and killed him on a cross.”
“No!” said her four-year-old daughter.
“They did”, she replied.
“No! Not our Jesus,” said the little girl, and burst into tears.
That little girl experienced something of the horror of the cross that we, who know the story so well, too often forget.
She knew Jesus – she really did – and was growing up in a family who loved him. But that day she was shocked and learnt something new about him.
Her mother also saw a new meeting in his death. She saw the look of terror on her daughter’s face. She began to appreciate some of the devastation that the women at the cross must have felt.
Saint Matthew says: There were also many women there looking from afar, who had followed Jesus from the Galilee, ministering to him; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
Now the resurrection is tremendous news. Our Jesus is alive today. He has smashed a hole through the wall of death, and this is good news for us – especially for those who are frightened to death by death.
But this should not remove the sheer horror of the cross from our minds. Jesus was cruelly executed as a criminal – even though he was innocent. He had been beaten, spat upon and cursed.
We know the end of the story. In raising Jesus, God says “Amen” to all his Son’s work. This is good news. Even the cross itself is good news, since our sins were paid for, once and for all.
But that little girl and her mother will never forget the strange horror of it all.
Will you?
Thanksgiving to God (5 April 1989)
Once there was a boy who was looking after his father’s cows. He was leading them down to the river to drink. This was during the long rains and the river was flowing fast. Suddenly he slipped on the muddy bank and fell in. He couldn’t swim and was swept down the river.
A man was passing and saw him. He rescued a boy, just in time. The boy returned home with the cows very shaken. He told his father what had happened.
His father went straight back to the river with his son to find the man. The boy pointed him out. The father saw his wet clothes and said, “Are you a man who saved my son from drowning?”
“Yes”, he replied.
And the father said: “Well, where’s his hat then? He’s lost it in the river.”
Now, too often we do that to God. Instead of thanking him for saving us and being grateful to him, we ask, “But what about this and that.”
“Why is it that my child is still ill?”
“Why did my father have that matatu accident?”
“Why haven’t I enough money to pay the building fund?”
Saint Luke, in chapter 17 of his Gospel, tells the story of Jesus healing 10 lepers. He says:
As they went away, they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back praising God with a loud voice and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus said, “Were not 10 cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Today, and every day, may your life be filled with Thanksgiving to God.
Trying to Control God (6 April 1989)
Once a boy was sitting on a stool next to his grandmother, outside her house. He has learnt a lot about God from her. She was full of wisdom, and he was full of questions.
“Where is God?”, he asked.
“Well, God is in heaven, but he’s also everywhere.”
“Everywhere?”, he asked, “even in our shamba?”
“Yes.”
“Even here, next to us?”
“Yes.”
“Even…”, and the boy picked up a Kimbo tin, “… even in this Kimbo tin?”
“Well… I suppose he is. Yes.”
The little boy quickly put his hand over the tin and said:
“Got him, at last.”
Well, the desire to have God, even to keep him and to control him, is not only in that little boy. God is so great that sometimes he seems too great for us. He is in control of the world and our lives and when we are searching for him, he may be difficult to find.
Sometimes, we don’t like that and want to be in charge ourselves. We prefer God to be a servant, to satisfy our desires. We may like to send him, in our prayers, to do things for us. But this is not real prayer, for it is God who sends us – he is not sent by us.
Some people tried to control Jesus. “Give us a sign and we will believe you are the one sent from God”, they would say. Jesus would refuse to work on their terms. “The only sign you will get will be the sign of Jonah, who was three days in the belly of a big fish.” So death and resurrection, in God’s time, is the only sign.
Even when arrested and brought before Pilate, Saint John tells the story as if it was Jesus who was in charge. Pilate says to him:
“You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you?”
Jesus answers him, “you would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above.”
Jesus’ death was the worst example of people trying to control God, but, as they say, ‘you can’t keep a good man down’ – and certainly not the Son of God.
In your prayers today, don’t try to send God to do things for you – let him send you.
Praying and Unanswered Prayer (7 April 1989)
The vicar’s daughter was a bit puzzled. She leaned across to her mother, during the hymn after the sermon, and whispered in her ear: “Mum, why does Dad always pray before he starts preaching?”
“Well,” she whispered back, “he asks God to help him preach.”
After thinking for a while, her daughter continued:
“Then, why doesn’t God help him preach?”
It’s difficult to answer a question like that isn’t it? Especially during a hymn! Why does God sometimes seem deaf to our prayers? He’s never really deaf, but it often seems like it, doesn’t it? Sometimes, he waits for us to do something to answer our own prayers. Perhaps that vicar ought to spend more time preparing a sermon, rather than trusting on instant inspiration in the pulpit.
One vicar used to boast that he could prepare his sermon as he walked from the vicarage, to his church, next door. The church elders were very tempted to pull down the vicarage and build it up again, 10 kilometers away. This would give him more time to prepare his sermon, they thought.
Perhaps we are praying for the wrong thing. If a boy asked for a box of matches to play with, his mother certainly won’t give it to him. If he asks for another soda to drink, while his brothers and sisters haven’t even had one yet, he won’t get it. At least not yet.
Our heavenly Father sees danger for us in some of our prayers, and even injustice sometimes. But some unanswered prayers will remain a mystery till we reach heaven. God’s overall plan for his world, and his own purposes, are very different from our limited views.
When we come to God in prayer, part of the answer comes by being changed ourselves, by the experience of being with him. After a very busy conference at the college where I teach, I felt I needed to have a couple of days of quiet to be alone with God. I came down from Kabare, in Kirinyaga district, to a Christian centre, just outside Nairobi. In the chapel, there were several prayer stools, to help people rest and pray. After praying, I wrote the following poem about the experience of being changed through being alone with God. It’s called ‘The Prayer Stool’.
I leave aside my shoes, my ambitions; undo my watch, my timetable; take off my glasses, my views; unclip my pen, my work; put down my keys, my security; to be alone with you, the only true God.
After being with you, I take up my shoes to walk in your ways; strap on my watch to live in your time; put on my glasses to look at your world; clip on my pen to write up your thoughts; pick up my keys to open your doors.
The Jump of Faith (8 April 1989)
The mother had just returned from the river with water, and was very tired. She could hear shouts and laughter in her house. She saw through the doorway and her husband had already arrived home for the weekend, from Nairobi. He was playing with the children and having great fun.
One after another they were climbing onto the table and jumping off, into his arms. Her tiredness seemed to leave her, as she looked at the delight on her children’s faces. It looked a bit dangerous, leaping off the table, but they trusted him completely.
They hadn’t seen her yet. Although she wanted to greet her husband, she didn’t want to disturb the game. She remained for a while in the shade of the mango tree – and watched and thought.
Her husband certainly had changed. The last few weeks she had looked forward to his coming at weekends, instead of fearing him. He had been appreciating her cooking, instead of beating her. He had spent time with the children, instead of in the bar. Would it last? She was a bit afraid, too. Afraid of whether she also should get saved.
He talked a lot about it, the last few weekends. How the Jesus, written about in the Bible, had suddenly become real to him. How a friend in his office, Mwangi, had helped him to pray and read the Bible. She has been going to church every now and then, but it didn’t mean much to her. She was afraid of what further commitment would mean. What had happened to her husband?
Then he noticed her, and so did the children. They came running out to tell her about the new game and she entered the house to greet him.
“Have you seen this?” he said, and again, one by one, the children climbed on the table and jumped off into his arms.
Later that evening, when all was quiet, they again talked about his new faith in Jesus. “What is faith, then?” she asked. “It’s difficult to explain”, he said “but in the office this week I was reading a passage in Luke chapter 18, with Mwangi:
Jesus says, ”Let the children come to me and do not stop them, for to such belong the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child, shall not enter it.”
“I’ve only just begun to understand that, this evening, when I returned home,” he said. “You saw how the children jumped off the table and I caught them, didn’t you? Every time I caught them – and I would never let them fall. I think faith is trusting our heavenly Father like that. It may seem a bit frightening at first, but he is reliable and you can trust him.”
That Sunday, they went to church with the children. The mother had been thinking hard on Saturday. Instead of staying in her seat when it came to communion, she went forward. As she took the bread and the wine, she knew she had taken the jump of faith.
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First published on Covenant, the online journal of The Living Church, 12 Aug 2025.
