All Will Always Be Revealed...

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It’s very easy to be deceived by the things we see online, we see all the lights and glamour people show off and we just want it all. It’s hard to know who is faking it and who is being real out there because everyone just wants to look their best when it comes to the public eye.

Everything that is put out there is packaged specifically so that the public will look at us with a favorable eye. We all want people to think highly of us, so we tell them only the best parts of our lives and how everything is just fine and dandy, like just another Tuesday.

As a result, people are left thinking one way about us, when in fact we’re experiencing something different. Things could be worse, things could be better, but we take great precautions to make sure that those things never see the light of day.

As for me, when did I get the epiphany that all that glittered was indeed not gold?

Honestly, I’ve been racking my brain about this and I’ve been coming up empty. I’m not one to read a lot of meaning into the life people put out online and while I can admire them, it doesn’t get me out of sorts at all.

I used to know a guy who wanted to become a pastor. He wanted to become a pastor just the same way people become engineers and lawyers like you just wake up one day and realize you want to lead your flock. That was how it was for him. He told us he was called by God, and that he only needed a sponsor to help him out. We never argued with him, although we did tease him a lot about his stance on a lot of things.

For starters, this guy was selfish to the core! Like, how will you want to be a leader, and borrowing your friend N50 will be hard for you? He’s one of those people that just naturally say ‘no’ first even before they hear what you have to say. Just as you’re asking them, they’ve told you no and then proceed to give reasons as to why they can’t help you. Maybe even if God did call him, he would have said no just out of habit.

Other than that though, he didn’t have a problem. He was active in his church, he spoke in tongues and prayed like he was going to bring the heavens down, he had a great voice and was great on the keyboard. Like, this guy was just the full package, when it came to ministerial work. This was the path he chose to pursue and it was working for him.

Every evening of the week and weekends, he was always in one church or the other ministering and preparing himself for the time when he would be ready to lead his flock. Other than being selfish, he had no problems, so we were cool with him. We all were chasing our dreams and that was the main goal.

One thing changed our perception of him though, it was when a scandal involving a pastor broke the internet. A major sex scandal that even involved an A-list celebrity. It was a time when people were taking sides and trying to decipher what really happened on their own. Many debunked the claims and others were certain that it was true. But not for my friend, he told us that even if it was true, there was nothing wrong with it!

He then went on to tell us about the struggles Men of God face every day just so they will be able to cater to the spiritual needs of the people, he talked about the pains they go through and the multitudes of battles they have to fight on behalf of the flock. He believed that a little sin here and there was not bad, after all, the human body isn’t firewood.

It was at this point we realized who our friend really was and how he wasn’t really after the holy life as he claimed. He was simply after the prestige, glamour, and wealth that came with being a popular Man of God. This made us realize that when this guy got to that point, nothing would stop him from doing even worse. He’ll be one of those pastors who will milk his congregation of every single penny they have, grow fat, buy private jets, and build luxurious houses, while they keep growing poor day after day. He’ll be the kind that will sleep with his female ministers, and the wife of his male members under the “guidance of the spirit”.

All this made him a hypocrite because he was working towards becoming everything he preached and prayed against. Sometimes, how a man will climb the pulpit to preach about the evils of adultery and fornication, only to go behind the curtains and sleep with other people’s wives always baffles me. At this point, I could see this as the path this guy was headed down.

And I was not wrong. About a year later, a mini-scandal broke out in our neighborhood. And it involved this guy. Turns out he had multiple girlfriends, two of which had a really public and messy fight because of him, another one got pregnant and saddled him with more responsibility than he was ready for. The story became so widespread that churches around no longer called him, he became like a plague that everyone was trying to avoid. He could no longer show his face in public again, everyone was talking about how shocked they were about his acts. But me and my friends were not surprised, we had seen this coming from a mile away.

Eventually, he simply vanished from view. Last I heard, he relocated somewhere else with one of the girls, somewhere he wasn’t known so he could start afresh. Honestly, I really don’t care at this point. I know he has what it takes to become a successful pastor, if I see him on TV and the like, I won’t be surprised. But I’ll never take anything he says with more than a pinch of salt. Because now I’m certain that he was never called.

Even if he was called, it sure wasn’t by God.

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_{Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below, I would love to know what you’re thinking. Till we meet in the next post.}

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_{This post is inspired by the third topic of the week which is All That Glitters. Feel free to try it out.}

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_{N.B: All images are mine.}

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