By Kumbukani Kondowe

Lilongwe, December 7, Mana: President, Lazarus Chakwera has asked Malawians to put aside pride and walk in integrity for the nation to receive Gods blessings saying pride prevents people from receiving blessings that God has prepared for them.

 and this in return leaves the nation in impoverished state.

He was speaking on Thursday in Lilongwe during National Day of Prayer organised by Evangelical Association of Malawi.

“Now that we have presented our requests to God through prayer, we must let God appear to us to remove our prideful attitude and renounce our wicked ways because pride and wickedness either hinders us from receiving Gods blessings or cause us to squander those blessings after we have received,” said Chakwera

The president referred to the biblical story of King Solomon when God appeared to him in the dream telling him that  “if his people, who are called by His name shall humble themselves and pray and seek his face and turn from their wicked ways, then He would hear from heaven and forgive their sins and will heal their land.

Chakwera likened the story to Malawi as a God fearing nation saying the country needs to go back to God and ask for forgiveness because this is the only way through which the nation can be healed from the current challenges it is going through.

“We have a lake with fresh water but we can’t take water to people’s houses because we can’t humble ourselves to work with one another, we have young and energetic people but we can’t incorporate them in institutions for our own wicked and selfish interests, we have land to produce enough food but the corrupt people steal those same resources meant to subsidise fertilizers to help the poor people

As we leave this place of prayer, God is reminding us to stop our wicked ways, to go back into our respective stations and conduct ourselves with enough humility to work together, not against each other but with enough integrity to work for the common good of the nation and not for selfish reasons,” said Chakwera

In his remarks, Bishop Montfort Sitima, chairperson of the 2023 National Day of Prayers organising committee and Vice Chairperson of Evangelical Association of Malawi  said the prayers were for everyone to thank God and ask him to lead Malawi according to its culture and values.

“The prayers were organised for everyone from Nsanje to Chitipa, Salima to Mchinji, the prayers were not for  an individual person or a particular party. We are all Malawians belonging to one nation, therefore we must be patriotic towards our nation as we work together,” 

 We have not seen opposition party members here so let me say that Malawi is one and not two nations one for opposition and one for ruling party whereby the president calls for prayers and the opposition not showing up,” said Sitima

2023 National Day of prayer was organised by Evangelical Association of Malawi and other religious leaders under the theme “Malawi: a hopeful and resilient Nation”

Different people from all regions including  traditional leaders participated in the prayers.