Zimbabwe: The perfect fruit tree that was destroyed now has to be restored.

I had a prophetic vision about Zimbabwe at church sometime last year, on the 29th of June 2008 and wrote about it on this blog in the article entitled, "When all hope is gone in the earthly realm." I am pasting it here today because this time of rebuilding Zimbabwe was part of that prophetic vision.

In that prophetic vision I saw Zimbabwe being depicted as a fruit tree which has been completely destroyed. The Bible verse, Joel 1V4 immediately came to my mind to describe the Zimbabwean fruit tree that has been destroyed, "That which the palmerworm hath left, hath the locust eaten and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten." Zimbabwe used to be a healthy tree with perfect fruit. Every gift and fruit of the Holy Spirit was manifested in Zimbabwe, love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. The perfect tree that was Zimbabwe then was rooted and grounded in ethics, professionalism, efficiency, hard work and above all faith in God. Every limb, branch, leaf and fruit was in perfect state and strength. What glorious days of harmonious unity and love we enjoyed during that time as all institutions functioned efficiently and there was no inflation to talk about. Those were the days when the country flowed milk and honey and it was the bread basket of Africa. How we have often wished that we had stopped people from destroying the perfect tree of Zimbabwe.

The falling away and destruction of the perfect tree of Zimbabwe did not occur in one day. It was a gradual deterioration accomplished day by day and stage by stage. One day the palmerworm appeared in the form of greed and corruption by the government ministers and top officials, eating and destroying the tree as they designed and selected uneconomical projects that created opportunities for financial kickbacks and abused their office by fostering their own monopolistic access to markets and they misappropriated confidential information for their personal gain. So as the days went by the gifts and friuts of the Spirit on the Zimbabwean tree began to disappear from view as unselfish love, ethics, professionalism and peace were attacked by the palmerworms who then grew bolder and bolder day by day. The fruits of the Zimbabwean tree began to disappear from the staunch and upright tree. This state of less fruit was indeed a condition worthy of lamentation, but the pity of it all is that the devastation did not stop with the havoc started and wrought by the palmerworms. Other years and other worms joined in the work of destruction where the palmerworm had left off. Some Zimbabwean citizens saw the greed and corruption being inflicted on the Zimbabwean tree by the ministers and top officials who were supposed to be exemplary to the nation and lost all trust in them and this down-streamed lack of trust in the country's leadership infuenced some of them to also partake in corrupt illicit deals. Thus the locust started to destroy the leaves of the Zimbabwean tree as some Zimbabwean citizens started to make illicit payments of "speed money" to officials in the different institutions in the country to facilitate fast transactions or to prevent the application of rules and regulations especially with regard to law enforcement and revenue collection. It was a sad day when the locust had done its work and the leaves were stripped from the tree but that was not to be the last of the destruction, that which the locust had left the cankerworm ate. After the fruit and the leaves had been destroyed, the cankerworm immediately made his appearance and began his work upon the branches and tender shoots of the tree. This destructive insect is an allegory of all those who threw ethics, professionalism and efficiency out of the window because of the toll of hyperinflation which made them resort to unclean ways of making a quick buck. It also represents the businesses that resorted to charging exorbitant prices for their goods and services, prices that were unjustifiably high and gave them profits as high as 200% to 500% and overstretched the pockets of the ordinary Zimbabwean who then had to resort to illicit corrupt deals to make money so as to keep up with the high cost of living. The blackmarket flourished as business managers preferred to sell their goods outside the normal outlets so that they could make some individual gains from the sells. Most Zimbabweans were rubbed the wrong way by the toll of hyperinflation and no longer lived above the world and sin, they no longer walked the narrow path, so long enjoyed by the children of the Lord. As the sap, the life of the tree, was consumed and the branches rotted more and more, things that used to seem unethical or sinful appeared unethical or sinful no longer. The sinners that used to bar themselves outside the doors of the Church now leaned back in comfortable contentment in the cushioned pews and tithed handsomely with their unclean bucks. Christians lowered the high starndard of holiness unto the Lord which they had been holding aloft. Now it trailed bedraggled and unnoticed in the dust. The Holy Spirit as a gentle dove was squashed, grieved and stifled until he silently withdrew his wonder-working manifestations on the Zimbabwean tree. The result is in Joel 1V16 , food, joy and gladness were withheld from our nation. It was not long before the trunk and the roots of the Zimbabean tree began to decay and the caterpillar made his nest in the decayed and rotted hollows of the tree. That which the cankerworm had left became food for the caterpillars. The caterpillars were in the form of anyone who took advantage of the destroyed unhealthy Zimbabwean tree to meet his or her own selfish needs and in so doing further destroyed the nation. Corruption spread in the administrative domain which included among others, nepotism, cronyism, ghost workers on public payrolls, collection of unauthorised fees, falsification and destruction of records, arbitrary administrative action and circumventing established procedures and regulations. In the judiciary corruption appeared in the form of the Zanu PF executive branch pressurising judges to give verdicts not based on justice but on political expediency. We then saw the Zimbabwean tree at the most lamentable condition yet, its perfect fruits gone, eaten and stripped off by the palmerworm ministers and top government officials, leaves gone, denuded off its leaves by the locust corrupt officials in the country's institutions, its branches rotten and the bark peeled away by cankerworm blackmarketeers and business people who wanted to get rich quick with unrealistic profit margins as well as all those ordinary Zimbabweans who instead of coming up with ethical, professional, innovative ways of countering hyper-inflation resorted to corrupt ways of making money, a nest for the caterpillars who further destroyed the tree. In the spiritual realm, the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit gone, holiness gone, justification by faith gone. The angels looked down on Zimbabwe from Heaven and wept. The noble Zimbabwe, the perfect tree which had once stood clad with power and glory of the Holy Spirit, now had nothing left but a name, not even a remnamt of her former splendour. As if that was not enough, the Zimbabwean people's right to freedom of expression and voting for any candidate they wanted was suppressed with beatings, torture, maimings and killings. The graphic language in Isaih 1V6-8, accurately describes the Zimbabwean people with their fruit tree destroyed and themselves beaten up for political reasons. " From head to foot you are sick and weak and faint, covered with bruises and welts and infected wounds, unanointed and unbound. Your country lies in ruins, your cities are burned while you watch, they are destroying and plundering everything they see. You stand there helpless and abandoned like a watchman's shanty in the field when harvest-time is over or when the crop is stripped and robbed."

Oh yes that is where the Zimbabwean stood before the coalition government was formed but the prophetic message I conveyed to Zimbabweans during this time of complete humiliation was that the Lord gave us a marvelous promise of restoration. It's all mentioned in Joel 2V21-25, "Fear not, Oh land, be glad and rejoice, for the Lord will do great things. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm and the caterpillar and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you." All that the Zimbabwean perfect tree lost will be restored, not in one day but in the same way it was lost, line by line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, till a completion of this restoration is reached. This restoration is only possible if we have a deeper realisation of what it means to live a life wholly given up and consecrated to the Lord so that the tender shoots and branches of the Zimbabwean tree can be thrust forth on the tree again. As we pray and yield ourselves to the Spirit, God will allocate gifts to everyone of us as the Spirit chooses, he will cause the gifts and fruits of the Spirit to be visible in our midst, in our nation. Yes, Zimbabwe's perfect fruit tree can be restored, it's all in our hands, every Zimbabwean's hands, to restore it or to further destroy it. Our working hard and harmoniously towards the restoration of our country and our prayers will do it, they will encourage all Zimbabweans to act responsibly and change their unethical, unprofessional inefficient and corrupt ways, they will enable an effective coalition government that is accountable through citizen feedback, democratic institutions, a competitive free press and an independent judiciary to be put in place, they will cause businesses to stop pursuing unrealistic profits relentlessly at the expense of the customers and make them realise that when it comes to maximising long-term owner value, honesty is not just the best policy, it is the only feasible policy. Through prayer we can make the relevant people aware that political and business decisions blessed by God and based on honesty and merit if added to good governance, responsive policies and good capacity building sustainable business goals will ultimately lead to the economic turnaround of our nation. Through prayer we can make the mobilised minds of those who agree to be sent to subject their fellow Zimbabweans to inhuman atrocities to always remain loyal to the truth and God, as loyalty to a person, regardless of his or her wrong intentions is not a path to be followed and only encouraged by leaders with a weak moral fibre.

Honestly speaking this is not a time to sit on our laurels looking at Tsvangirai, Biti and all those other 70 ministers to do the rebuilding for us while we sit, this is the time to roll up our sleeves and get busy contributing in the rebuilding in the way we know how. This is the time to pray whole-heartedly for the restoration of our nation Zimbabwe and to thank God for making us survive the cholera, the hunger the stress and the economic chaos. All Zimbabweans out there I will leave you pondering about the words of this song, "Kana vakomborerwa usazokanganwa kutenda Mwari." Thank you God for blessing us with life against all odds and would you please continue to bless us as we rebuild our Zimbabwe.