This offer to refuse one billion dollars is harsh, but this offer to pick the Mind and Power of Jesus, is mean
—Don Okolo
For some people, having one billion dollars in their pocket is tantamount to having more money than God…especially, if the money was an overnight acquisition…literally, overnight. And you are not a gambler, meaning you hadn’t gambled on Lotto tickets the previous day on the likelihood you could win big.
I love angling with the mind of man…to see what I could pull out of the murk. To delve into the inner sanctum of one’s mind, just to see how they are hanging with certain truisms in make-belief situations is a noble exercise. The thought of having your account pushed to a level of overflow with that much cash would send one into a tailspin. Some may not recover just on the whiff of its powerful, hallucinatory properties.
To possess this much cash, you must be a part of this weird, unfathomable-in-scope campaign. There is a one-page form to fill out and rules to follow. Do these entry level things, and the one billion dollars is yours. Just to ease off on the pressure that I am exerting on your mind, you would not be asked to kill someone, or beat the living daylights out of your worst enemies, or even maim some deserving individuals, or even engage in unethical, and on anything immoral to earn this dough.
The game is one of choice on two items: The billion dollars in your bank account for just one day, or to possess the Mind and Power of Jesus
I can see a set of hands up in the air; men and women willing to go on this jamboree and take their chances. The game is one of choice on two items: The billion dollars in your bank account for just one day, or to possess the Mind and Power of Jesus…not His Body…again, for one day. No matter which one you pick, there are caveats (limitations) attached. You would be surprised at the choices some people would make given the opportunity. And if the challenge were for their ears and eyes only…where no one else was privy to the offer, they would make surprising decisions to boggle the mind. The maxim…But A Short Time To Live, would weigh heavily on that choice they would eventually make: The choice of having the Mind and Power of Jesus, The Christ, for just twenty-four hours…not His Body…with some grinding, painful attributes and clauses…attached to the package would be passed on. The choice of being in possession of one billion dollars, with its own loose, very loose stipulations is an easier choice to make. This stuff is good! This is delicious! I can see the making of a feature length film titled: JUST FOR ONE DAY.
To play this game, one must abide by the rules. Take it or leave it. For the billion dollars, you are entitled to spend it on anything that catches your fancy, as long as you blow through it in twenty-four hours, like a tornado going through a desert landscape…dust storm and all. (Remember, you are getting this deal against possessing the Mind and Power of Jesus, for the same length of time) At the end of the day, you would be ripped, dispossessed of the things you bought, and what unspent money you still have if you did not up to the rules of the bet.
And just like the scene in the film, Men in Black, your mind would be wiped clean and returned to the banal, nondescript (dull) existence you had mastered, that is, if you had chosen to have the Mind and Power of The Second Person in the Trinity bestowed upon you.
Here are the other conditions attached to the spicy offer of a billion dollars; you are not allowed to leave the city, or would you be allowed to make purchases outside the city limits, remotely or otherwise. In other words, every purchase made must be within the city walls…including this other little, irritating proviso (stipulation): You are not allowed to distribute liquid cash, nor would you be allowed to double down, you know, duplicate on any item you have already purchased.
Cars, houses, and that includes wide-open spreads like ranches, franchises and jewelries…these things stand on their own and could not be piled on or duplicated. These and other great substantive emoluments like side chicks, sweeter chums that know specialties like no one else knows them would not be on the menu, that is, if you were in an existing entanglement. Everything must be fresh and new. In other words, you have, inside the billion, the same very reaches as the Aga Khan has with his billions…and as much latitude as he has, to pursue Rhoda of the Nile, and only Rhoda, figuratively, to the ends of the earth…for your first and only score. While you are mulling on the delicate, but serious admonitions tied to the stake (bet) and the loss of all acquired riches if you failed to spend it all, I’d like to advise you on the virtues of the other bet that would most likely leave you with the short end of the stick after your mind had been zapped. But you would see things as Jesus saw them. You would think the way He thinks…and the extraordinary gigs he performed would all be at your beck and call…for twenty-four hours.
But you would see things as Jesus saw them. You would think the way He thinks…and the extraordinary gigs he performed would all be at your beck and call…for twenty-four hours.
Most people I know are hard ballers…and I am not naming names here. These gangbangers would prefer that a limitless footloosey clause be attached to the billion. They would rather not have a time limit applied to the cash money package. To them, Heaven can wait ooo!
Being like Jesus for twenty-four hours, in their minds, could not outdo having no strictures holding them down in their expectations to fox-trot all day long on a Las Vegas strip; they would rather not have their expectations of joyous escapades brow-beaten, smashed to pulp and tossed. A man looking forward to his new role as high roller, is a desperate man. Even as he knows that the bevies of blondes, like Teresa Bohanon…the red-haired gazelle, like Beebe Phunkhauser, and the dark and sassy prototypes of the rainforest, like Uju Akajiamu and Ifeoma Ikeagwu, are not game. The lure of so much cash in one’s coffers is the beauty of this bet. A good many would go to their graves plying in that lone wolf partner-act dance of a Tango, like they invented salsa. They would do so happily, too, for having the temerity and the chance to choose between The Lamb of God and the joy of so much money. This day-dreaming jaunt (Stroll) is for the movies. Total guess-estimated box-office gross: Two hundred million dollars.
But wait!!!
I have yet to have takers. A great many people would love that opportunity to flaunt (display) wealth and live to brag about it the next day. The one making you this offer has an even sweeter deal for you; that is, after your choice is clear, and you have chosen to be like His Son…in mind and power only…for just twenty-four hours.
The stipulations this time are stricter and more confining. Do not worry, you are not going to be scourged and or impaled on a wooden crossbeam. And neither would you be allowed to own any material things or wish for that one carnal escapade you have been daydreaming about for more than twenty years. This offer to refuse one billion dollars is harsh. This offer to pick the Mind and Power of Jesus, is mean. The offer to know what Jesus knows, to be able to do the kinds of things that he did…walk on water…raise the dead, could be yours…as long as you do not use it for personal aggrandizement inside of the allotted time. It is without effervescence and warmth: And on top of that, it comes with death right after the bet is up. With the billion dollars, you get to live, even after you had lost everything for non-compliance.
I know what my choice would be…and please, do not make me tell you.
Here is the reason: The One offering you the deal could not take any chances with any mortal in possession of so much sacred buffet…even after He had cleaned out your mind. He would have no choice but to take your life to keep to Himself, His true Nature. So, what would it be? One billion dollars…for twenty-four hours? Or the Ebb and Flow of the Son of Man…for twenty-four hours? I know what my choice would be…and please, do not make me tell you. There is someone I told that I am an atheist…because she is an atheist…and I want to remain on her good graces long enough for her hold on me to wear off. Good day people!
♦ Don Okolo, Professor and filmmaker, is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of many books.
