THE EDITOR, Sir:
PLEASE ALLOW me to draw a biblical conclusion on the spiritual situation in our country using our disappointment in our two male sprinters, Asafa and Usain. I use the Bible because it is the book that records the influence of the spiritual on the natural.
"Cursed is man who puts his trust in mortal man and turns his heart away from God." Jeremiah 17:5.
It cost our gifted athletes their possible gold medals to show us from Athens the source of our problems of crime, violence and poverty. Idolatry is at the core.
In the book of Jeremiah from the living Bible, God's anger against Israel's idolatry was symptomatic of the very same problems we are experiencing now.
What is idolatry? It is defined by the Oxford dictionary as giving a thing or person excessive devotion.
Our extreme confidence in these two athletes could be interpreted as idolatry. We apologise to God for this and for all the excessive devotions in our lives.
I say to both Asafa and Usain, congratulations... you were God's appointment to show us ourselves. This was more urgent than your Olympic glory.
Let us repent of our individual idolatries so that the wonderful heritage reserved for us will not slip out of 'our' hand. Jeremiah 17: 4.
I am, etc.,
L. DAVIDSON-BROWN
P.O. Box 1219
Montego Bay
