Article November 27, 2006 Issue

DEATH IS NOT PART OF GOD'S PLAN

BY GABRIEL TSHIALA LUMBADILA

In Congo, the central African country where I was born, I often heard two expressions in Lingala, my first language: Etangamaki, which means, "This is the way it was foreordained"; and Mokano ya Nzambe, meaning, "It is God's will."

With these expressions, which are also almost universally held beliefs among the Congolese, my fellow countrymen tend to attribute, mostly to God, not only the life and death that may befall them, but also the good and evil, sickness and health, wealth and poverty, that they experience. Within this belief system, God is conceived of as having a human face. He sits somewhere in heaven and possesses a calendar, indicating a specific date for the death of each person. One can do nothing about this "supernatural fact" except wait powerlessly to undergo his or her fate, because that is believed to be the divine plan.

I have found that Christian Science, which is the Comforter that Christ Jesus promised, comes to humanity's rescue, revealing life's deepest truths—about the Life that is God; about the restorations of human life achieved by Jesus, his apostles, and the Bible's earlier prophets; and about everlasting life in God, which is ours to discover.

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