Ghanaian Fable

The King and the Bodyguard

A Ghanaian Fable

Once there was a tribal king who loved to hunt. Often he would go into the jungle with his faithful bodyguard to stalk leopards and the occasional lion. On one hunting trip the king had a sore on the tip of his finger. He showed it to the bodyguard whose job, among other things, was to act as a doctor. He applied some herbal medicine and the next day the finger looked a little better.  However, by nightfall it had become infected again. The next day the bodyguard tried every herbal remedy he knew to heal the Kings finger, but in the end the bodyguard had to amputate the finger so that the infection would not spread to other parts of the kings body. Upon returning to their village the angry king had his bodyguard thrown in jail.

A few weeks later the king again went hunting but this time, without a bodyguard. On his expedition in the jungle he was surrounded and captured by a rival tribe and taken back to their village to serve as a human sacrifice to the gods. They tied the king to a tree and began their ritual dancing. As the drumbeat was getting faster there came a cry from the back of the crowd, “STOP”. One of the priests made his way through the crowd to the bound king. The priest lifted up the hand of the king and announced that he was missing a finger and as such would not qualify as a perfect offering to satisfy the gods. The king was released and the priests went in search of another candidate to sacrifice.

Upon returning to his village the king went straight to the prison where he had the bodyguard released. He told of his near brush with death and thanked the bodyguard for removing his finger which had saved his life. In turn the bodyguard said “thank you for putting me in prison or I would have been with you and it would have been me who died in your place.”

Sometimes what we initially see as a painful misfortune or a great trial turns out to be the very thing that allows us to experience growth and great blessings in the end.

Originally shared in MTC presidency meeting by President Michael Acquaye                    January 29, 2017