The Circumcision of Men

I recently gave a Doctor the honour of circumcising me. I call it an honour cause I don’t usually make it a habit to undress and show off my winky to people let alone have them probe and dissect parts of it. I will not divulge the reasons for why I decided to go through such an experience, lets just say it was an experience I would not want to relive at any time in my life.

What stood out for me during the whole procedure was that the dear Doctor stitched and stitched and stitched. There were a number of times I thought he was through, but then he would look here and there and get another suture and restart stitching at some area he had missed. It got to a point where I started thinking to myself, “I am tired I want to go home”. He was very thorough I will give him that.

Somewhere before he finished I started to think of all those people who have been circumcised before. Specifically, those who did not have the benefits of modern medicine for such an operation. I thought of the people who have those parts of their flesh cut off them without the benefits of anesthesia, how painful would that be? For me it was easier, I was injected with some drug that made me go all numb so that I couldn’t feel a thing during the operation and during the stitching afterwards.

I remember in the Christian bible the children of Israel as part of their covenant or agreement with Jehovah, to be his people and Jehovah to be their God, were required to have every male circumcised(baby, boy and man). Having gone through the process myself I ask myself why he would ask such a thing from them, they had no anesthesia so hell it must have been quite a painful ordeal for the males of that nation. What was the relevance of this requirement? Even more confusing, why did he not ask them to have cut off any other part of their flesh but this? And also, why the men only and not the women as well?

In the year 2011 I learnt one very interesting thing, God will on the face of it do one thing but you will later on realize that it has multiple consequences and that its significance goes very deeper than you would normally think at first glance. I found the answers to my questions very interesting. I would like to think that these answers came from the Holy Spirit himself because they are just too ingenious for my small brain. Pay attention.

As regards the relevance of the circumcision or why God would ask for such a thing at all, the answer that came to me is thus: Circumcision is an experience you never forget. You will always remember the pound of flesh you gave up. You have a lot of anxious moments when you are trying to heal from the wounds, and whether you are circumcised raw or not you have the pain of it to deal with too. All these ensure that you have a time in your life which you will always remember. Painful moments are forever inscribed in our hearts, it’s the good times we easily forget. The design of God then was this, every time an Israelite male bathed or took a pee he would look down and remember going through that painful experience and would ask himself why he had given himself to such pain willingly. It was then he would remember he had done it for his God, in agreement with his covenant. That way Jehovah would never be too far from their hearts.

Let’s move on to the second question: Why did God not ask that they cut off a finger, part of their tongue or just a little measure of flesh from their hip? It has occurred to me that 70% of a man’s sin is caused by that very small organ and not the other parts I have mentioned. Lust, adultery, fornication are pretty obvious reflections of the desires of this part of a human being. And of course men have been known to lie just to bed a woman, so have they been known to steal so that they could have enough money to give a woman or purchase something that would ensure that she undresses. On average, a fully functional male will think of sex 60% of the time or more. So you see how big a problem it is. So Jehovah went to the root of the problem and gave the Israelites a constant reminder that he was around. You see, that 60% of the time an Israelite man would think of sex he would also think of his male organ and by extension of the circumcised state it was in. Merely thinking of this would shame the sensitive into not falling into sin as thinking of it reminded him of his covenant with God to be holy. That’s why the penis was chosen and not any other human organ.

And now the last question: Why the men only and not the women too? In the Malawian culture we say a man is the head of the household. No matter how much women agree with gender equality this is a thing that they cannot refute no matter how stubborn they are, that a man is a superior being to them because of his emotional and physical strength. In his infinite wisdom Jehovah saw that wherever men led their women would follow. While men are the hornier of the human species, the females are the most dissatisfied which means both are equally more likely to fall into sin because of their endless desires. But if you can put a stopper on a man’s desires there are few women who would demand such service from men as men are usually the initiators. Thus, women would be powerless to cause sin. So you control the desires of man you control the whole nation’s ability to sin. That’s why circumcision was asked of men and not women.

If you just look at only the part that says God asked that all men be circumcised and not the rest that shows you why he did in this what would you think was his intention? As you have witnessed, God used one simple event to have a multiplicity of far-reaching unrelated effects. He asked that all men be circumcised. Out of this he ensured Israel would forever keep him in his heart, remember his covenant, and that sin would lessen among his people.

Just as pain was used on the Israelites to among other things keep them in constant remembrance of their God, many people today are allowed painful moments by God so that in future they will always keep him close to them when they remember the ordeals he has gotten them through. Many men feel like God doesn’t love them, or does not care for them because they are going through an unimaginably painful experience or have gone through heartbreaking pain. You would be surprised if God were to speak and tell you the reason for your pain or trauma. So lets not give up on him when we face some troubled times. Come on people can’t we trust him a little? Hold on. In time all will be revealed, the reasons for all the pain, that has always been my belief.