Healing and Restoring the Nation

There is no handy road map for reconciliation. There is no shortcut or simple prescription for healing the wounds and divisions of a society in the aftermath of sustained violence. Creating trust and understanding between former enemies is a supremely difficult challenge. It is, however, an essential one to address in the process of building lasting peace.

Examining the painful past, acknowledging it and understanding it and above all, transcending it together is the best way to guarantee that the past does not repeat itself. However, these can be lasting or temporary solutions depending on what we base our peacebuilding on.

If we go back to the Prince of Peace Himself i.e., Jesus Christ, then we shall be building on a firm foundation.

The reason we compromise is because we ask, “What will people say? What will people do?” rather than, “What will God say? What will God do?” If we get these questions right, then we shall begin to walk back into the path of righteousness and authority in influencing our governments for His glory.

I would like to deal with a foundational area that really helps or hinders us in dealing with just about any area of being strong – mentally, physically, financially, politically, and spiritually. It is the most important area of our existence.

The foundation of every society is family. When we can get it right at the level of family, then we can get it right in every other area. The smallest part of the nation is the family. Every nation is made up of many families together in a certain territory with their own boundaries.

We must mentor our families. Where we have already erred, we must repent and teach our children that there is a better way the way of the Lord as intended in the beginning in Genesis 1:24.

We have not used our influence to bring healing and to transform mindsets from war mode to development and work mode. Nobody taught our people that developing a nation is much more challenging than picking up a gun. All these take a lot of mindset change. We have ignored this area, and we do not have enough competent people to help within the Body of Christ.

However, knowledge came to set us free. We have been traumatized by war as a nation. War trauma does not heal overnight except by a move of the Holy Spirit over the land. We can learn from Nelson Mandela and what he did in South Africa to help liberate the mindsets of his people.

We as the church have the solution for change of our belief systems. We are told that we have the responsibility to renew our own minds if we shall be transformed.

You can begin with the scriptures put forth all over this publication and pray them prophetically into your life. Ask the Lord to help you transform your mind. As your mind is transformed, He will give you direction unique to your own sphere of influence, for you to bring the same healing of mindset to others. He has all the solutions, but we must engage with Him in word, prayer and fellowship. The word of the Lord is the most powerful to bring transformation to any territory.

We have said that without vision people perish. It is the role of the government to come up with specific measurable, time-bound objectives to see the nation develop toward a vision. These include flagship projects specifically for helping our people and engaging local and foreign investors. We must look at areas where we can harness the maximum from our people and include deliberate steps needed to achieve this.

We must create a good investor haven in our nation to get the required expertise to help us rebuild our nation. This means that some aspects which have prevailed, e.g., corruption and impunity must be stopped. We must stop the fighting and make efforts for every community to be properly included in the national plan. All of these can be started at the church level.

There are levels of ungodly foundations in South Sudan that must be dealt with, with a lot of wisdom, persistence, and diligence. Prayer and dealing with ungodly foundations as we see their traits manifest in our land and people is very important.

We must quickly qualify our people in every aspect. We must step up as a church in training families and mindsets with the truth that sets free.