Last night, I saw on the internet a very famous Nigerian pastor who had raised a prayer point that had said that before this time next year, your colleagues will be coming to you for food, and everyone else was busy shouting “Amen” at the top of their voices.
Ever since I can remember, this has been the method of praying for almost everyone here. For some messed up reasons, we've all come to the conclusion that in order for us to go up in life, we have to bring other people down.
Why would anyone, especially a man who claims to be a man of God, stand before hundreds of people in his congregation and wish everyone else in your life to go so broke that they have to beg you for food.
And the sad thing is that mindset has so much been imbedded in us that we unconsciously do it in different aspects of our lives.
The other day, a friend of mine who worked at a factory but left earlier this year, had gotten news that one of his colleagues had lost some of his fingers in the machine that they used to work, while running the night shift.
The damage to his hand was so bad that all that remained out of his five fingers was one. And after this friend of mine had told me the news, he had gone further to say, “Thank God he left the community when he did.”
Now what he said wasn't a bad thing, but the way he said it was the problem. And this is because he had said it in a way that translated to, “Thank God I had left when I did, and that something this tragic happened to someone else and not me.
Of course he didn't say that because he was an evil person, but he said that because that is how his mind has been programmed to work. We live in a country where everyone's mindset is set at, “As long as I and my loved ones are fine, then I don't care whatever evil happens to.
Sadly, the same way I can't blame my friend for saying what he said, the way he said it, I don't think I can blame the pastor too. And this is because he probably grew up hearing pastors before him pray that way, and just like everyone else, he has been programmed to do it just like that.
It takes someone who is very aware of these things to make the necessary changes.