I’m about to drop some triggering stuff on things I (used to) believe that may not be acceptable to others. That is okay. It’s also okay to not agree with me. To the “zealous” Christian that may come across this post, it is also okay not to agree with me.
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I grew up in a Christian household and community. I also grew up with a mother who doesn’t joke with anything spiritual. I was dragged to every function, every church program and even filled positions in church at a young age. I listened to many doctrines but the one that deeply ingrained itself into my conscious - very limited and poorly miscommunicated and misunderstood was,
“You can only succeed or prosper when you serve God dedicatedly”.
Now, I’m not trying to run down this message. Especially with the instances in the Bible that serve as proof. What I want to communicate is the poor reflection of this especially in a country such as Nigeria.
One toxic trait we have in Nigeria is the entitlement mentality followed by the blame superpower. Everyone else is to blame but us. We are not afraid to carry this mindset into adulthood and then we fail to grow out of it and blame every other person or thing for the failures in our lives. Those who finally grow out of it are almost always surrounded by people with a fixed mindset. Why am I bringing this up? Stay with me.
A typical Nigerian believes that going to church, cleaning the church, preaching to people and praying like their house is on fire will get them blessed by God. God will just be like,
“Yes. Take this 1 Million naira for being a good Christian.”
Or…
God will send someone that will miraculously pay all their bills.
And I know, many of us who use our brains know, that it doesn’t work that way. My friend @enyitee, wrote a beautiful post here yesterday about how you don’t get opportunities just because you feel you deserve them. They come to you when you plan for them because the Universe is also a great planner and resource manager.
Many of this zealous people have no idea how to manage resources. They find themselves in a constant limbo when it comes to these things and they have blatantly refused to learn. They get defensive and begin to call you “demon possessed” when you tell them that just praying and preaching doesn’t get it done.
Because if that were the case then God must be an unfair god. What about those who work, plan and build? Hmm? Sometimes people misconstrue things to fit their agenda. You want to tell me that just being “dedicated to God” was all you did? That’s a full ass lie and we all know it. Many people use God as a justification these days and it’s absolutely sickening.
Networking, strategic planning, communication, consistency, these are the things that get you there. If we want to go the religious way then we say, “God blesses the work of your hands.”
Which means He can’t bless what is not there. He can’t help you when you have made yourself unavailable. Because let’s face it. There are people who don’t believe God even exist and they do better than the well meaning Christians who carry God on their head.
Using God all the time to justify poor and lazy behavior is the very reason many people would rather go to a night club from dusk till dawn than go to church for only 4 hours. Not even forgetting the fact that people who do more than enough begin to feel guilty and not worthy because they “don’t serve God enough”. What a BS lie.
Anyway, to each man his own. What you see as being Christian is totally different to me. I am a Christian and I’m not a mindless one.
