YOUR PASTORS OR GOD?
By Taiye Olaniyi
During our childhood days, my father Jacob Olaniyi despite his age-long association with Ifa divination before his conversion to Christianity in 1908-1987, lived and died believing only in the power of God's repository in self and never to be entrusted to any other person be they a prophet, bishop, reverend or the least in the chain and the hierarchy of such in the Christian fold.
He must make sure he enjoined us all his children and acquaintances to only unravel the mystery of God within self against entrusting one's life to whims and caprices of others even when the turbulence of life comes one's way.
According to him in our Church's popular chorus " Oro ti mo ba ara aye so o nyibiri o nyibiri, ero ti mo ba enia ro o nyegere o nyegere ma kunle ma gbadura ma ba Eleda mi soro.".
This in a nutshell " the thoughts I shared in trust with man keeps changing. and what I confided in confidants full of betrayal, best I kneel in prayers and pour my heart to the Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient Creator of every living being, everywhere.
This mystical process best explains this in (1) "Self Realization" -behold old things have passed away all things are coming anew.
(2) Realization of the Divine Essence of God within one's soul personality.
(3) Ascent to Christ Consciousness of no religious or sectarian connotation but that highest level of spirituality which Jesus the Christ accessed, attained, and described as,
" My Father and I are one". That same Father is in you and many more things we can do more than he did.
Christ Consciousness in mystical perspective is the Way the Truth and the Life no one comes unto the Father except through this Cosmic Christ" infused in Jesus similarly in us all.
(4) Realisation of God's consciousness, the Immortality of God but that has to be when the mortal self finally attains immortality beyond the mortal realm.
Hmmm, where do our modern-day prophets and pastors come in this continuum of self to God's realization?.
In past years before the advent of Pentecostal mantle carrying and anointing oil as an all-rounder for breakthroughs even for the lazy-minded believers, personal relationship with the God of one's understanding was more convincing and more meaningful than today's prophecy seeking as every object of worship and Christian observances.
God has been made so pedestrian and daddyfied like pastors are referred to.
God is even ethnicized and pidginized as "Baba Goddey".
Many prophets and pastors of today hold sway over the lives of average Nigerian Christians like gods, goddesses, and ancestral deities of pagan times.
False prophesy embellish the claim to prosperity, the attainment of the political power of clients are never attributed to powers and principalities and corruption infested lives of their clients but any iota of contentment due to honest living against vanity associated with the lifestyles of many Nigerians highly placed, even in houses of worship are tagged ancestral curses.
Can giving one's life to Christ as a personal savior be tantamount to subjecting one's fortune, fate, or otherwise to the game of our prophets and pastors?
At what point are You and I the architects and masters of our destinies?
Jimmy Cliff in "Take a Look at Yourself"asks
" When you look at the mirror tell me what do you see, Is it who you are or what you want to be?"
Take a good look at yourself as am doing here whether or not you want to remain a chattel in the hands of others and a puppet under the auspices of fellow man.
May God Almighty move towards us according to the purity and dictates of our minds.
Taiye Olaniyi, a retired postman, writes from Lagos