Save them from themselves…

Social discourses of late have been dominated with people’s tirades against Pastors (men of God!).

The public is probably enraged further by the public display of N30 million cheque…said to be a birthday gift from one pastor to his missus.

What I see in all these is deep-seated anger in people towards certain “insensitive opulence” in the midst of the current economic crunch, especially when it is considered that most of all that ‘affluence’ come from the sweats of economically challenged folks.

I have a senior friend, a single lady in her middle age…a teacher at a public school. For as long as I can remember, she had always gone about her business on public transportation. But there came a day that I received an excited call from her. Her ‘childhood flame’ who lives abroad ran into her in Lagos and, in a bid to make life easier for her, gifted her with one of the cars he shipped to Nigeria for sale.

Less than three months later, he would learn that our lady happily sowed a seed in church with the same car…promptly going back to her ‘trekking’ lifestyle.

The guy didn’t find the scenario funny and severed communications with her.

In a newspaper article that I read sometime back… a wife only knew what hit her when their Pastor called for ‘radical seed sowing’ in church and her husband briefly left his seat, only to be seen walking towards the altar with a plasma television that they had purchased a week earlier. She said that it all felt like a dream except that she could still feel her own pinches.

According to her, for a very long time, their television in the house malfunctioned and after numerous repairs, they concluded it was best to save up and buy a brand new one. She said it would be understandable if they had two in the house and the husband chose to ‘sow seed’ with one but the reality is that they had NONE. And they have children to whom watching the television at certain time of the day is also a recreation of sorts.

And to think that he didn’t bother consulting her on his intention.

She also said that the experience redefined their marriage. And she learned to put a serious ‘mark of ownership’ on whatever she bought with her money but, most importantly, she made it clear to the husband that, if such happens again with whatever they jointly owned, he would simply refund her own part of the money to her…as she also has her own ways with God.

I was schooling (secondary school) in Ibadan but was always coming to Lagos at every school break to stay with one of my sisters. During one of those trips, I learned about a church in the estate that she had begun to attend.

Typical of her, one would not ‘hear word’ until you follow her to the church. It was a mid-week evening program they had on that day and I attended with her. When it was time for ‘offering and seed sowing’…the pastor declared that nothing short of EMPTYING YOUR POCKET TONIGHT will do… as God was about to surprise everybody in that gathering. People made several trips to the altar, as the Pastor continued to hammer on EMPTY YOUR POCKET TONIGHT AND CHALLENGE GOD ON YOUR ISSUES.

I only knew what hit me when the service was over and we were still standing on the main road. I thought my sister was waiting for somebody but I became worried when most church members kept passing us by-as they waved.

In no time, the Pastor also cruised past us in his SUV…with his ‘Yellow Missus’ on the front seat.
It was when I summoned the courage to ask my sister what we were waiting for that I realized that she emptied her pocket real good, even with our transportation fare.

It was not funny!
Eventually we hitched a ride home with a church member but that experience was rather traumatizing. We could have been attacked by hoodlums, as we stood on the road by that time of the night. I didn’t speak to her all through the night.

In my subsequent visits, she had already changed church!

People will always go above themselves in the quest for salvation, as different motives drive such in them.

Sometimes, help save people from themselves…if you mean well as a Pastor.

Take the unmarried lady in her middle age… probably poorly remunerated at work, who sowed her car as a seed and continued to trek. Couldn’t she have been prayed for and told to keep her car, seeing that she hasn’t got another?

It’s been YEARS now and she doesn’t have a replacement, yet. How many other people sowed seeds with their properties on that day? Does the pastor really need all of that?