Malawi poor because we squander what God gave to prosper us—Chakwera

President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera on Thursday dared Malawians to change their attitude and mindset towards national development, observing that the country fails to develop because citizens have squandered what God gave them to prosper.

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“We see examples of times we receive good things and opportunities from God that do not improve our well-being or transform our nation because we squander those things and opportunities on things that simply feed our pride and facilitate our wickedness. So God says to us that it is not enough to ask him for good things and opportunities when we pray. We must prepare ourselves to be good stewards of the good things we want from God by laying down our pride and setting aside our wicked ways,” said Chakwera.

He made the remarks during the National Day of Prayers, which took place at the Bingu International Convention Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe on Thursday.

Citing a biblical story of King Solomon, President Chakwera emphasized the need for Malawians to change their attitude by humbling themselves and to change their conduct by leaving their wickedness.

He challenged Malawians to ask themselves why God does not answer their prayers, stressing that God’s silence on people’s appeals could be a sign that people’s motives for the prayers do not please Him.

“So, now that we have presented our appeals to God through prayer, we must heed God’s own appeal to us to remove our prideful attitude and renounce our wicked ways, because pride and wickedness either hinder us from receiving God’s blessings or cause us to squander those blessings after we have received them. Just consider the blessings we have already received from God as a nation, but which are squandered every day because of our pride and wickedness.

“We have a lake with more fresh water than most nations in the world, but we cannot pump it into people’s homes because any proposed project to do so gets blocked by ourselves because we are too proud to support each other’s ideas. We have fertile land in abundance, but we cannot use it to produce food to feed the world because any program we set up to give our farmers inputs gets corrupted by our own wickedness and greed in the procurement process. We have beautiful attractions and weather that makes Malawi a great destination for tourists, but we cannot create friendly conditions for bringing tourists here because any attempt to change our regulatory framework gets blocked for selfish reasons. We have young people who are energetic and creative enough to bring innovation and transformation into every sector, but they are denied the opportunity to do so because some who hold decision-making positions in the public and private sector are too selfish to give others opportunities to contribute to the change we seek,” said Chakwera.

He added, “We have governance institutions that are equipped and empowered to serve the interests of poor Malawians and to facilitate development, but they are not able to do this because those who head these institutions lose focus and become distracted by their own prideful desire to use their powers to fight useless personal wars with each other. We have millions of Malawians who are united by their faith in God and their desire to transform the country, yet they are not able to unite in developing the country because of prideful leaders who constantly provoke the people to be angry and to refuse to work together.

But God says that if we want him to answer our prayers, if we want him to heal our land, then we who claim to be his people must first humble ourselves and stop participating in wickedness. So as we leave this place of prayer, let us go back into our respective stations and conduct ourselves with enough humility to work together, not alone or against each other. Let us go back into our respective stations and conduct ourselves with enough integrity to work for the common good, not for our selfish interests.”