From father to son

It is often said that the children of very religious folks end up less religious than their parents
Have you ever wondered why?

Those of us who first opened our eyes from the oblivion of mothers womb to meet the starring and smiling faces of xtian believers
as they rained on us thousands of blessings would understand why we are a breed that tends to be less religious.

The rise of mega pastors

As the economic pressures of SAP bit
A number of our parents gradually moved away from the orthodox christianity of their days whose emphasis was not on money but on suffering

They began to embrace this new type of charismatic christianity which promised them heaven here on earth
at first, it started with a caveat of the need for our parents to serve God more in order to access these blessings
'Serving God more" essentially meant helping the church leaders build well structured and large churches
Our parents generation were very happy to do this because it involved actually spending their time working for the church and envangelizing

Soon, the Charismatic pastors began to push further.
They saw biblical revelations that pointed to the need for our parents to give in order to get wealthy and escape the poverty happily dished out by military dictators
These pastors brought folks to the pulpits who gave testimonies that tied their giving to their stumbling on money
None was brought to testify on how they gave but did not receive

Our parents generation grudgingly but surely began to losen the grip on their purses
and in the proces birthed the first wave of wealthy preachers
In the instances where members cried out that it did not work, the pastors tagged them as 'lacking faith' in receiving despite 'having faith in giving'
umhhhhh

Spot the difference?

Some of our 'giving' parents progressed financially with time
Antagonists would debunk this claim and argue that someone at end of his career should be better than what he was at the start of his career
We the children of the very religious (or as some would say -spiritual) noticed that although our parents progressed or retrogressed,
Papa Rashid, who never attended church and was a know womaniser was more financially bouyant

At first, when we asked pastor in Sunday school, he would argue that we were yet to see the end of papa rashids life compared to that of our parents
Soon pastor became bolder and declared that even if God has assured you of blessings, if you do not make financial sacrifices to that blessing, wrath could turn against you
You never can tell how much sacrifice papa Rashid had been making to his secret Chi


We bought into all of this, and just like our parents we gave and gave
Some of us manageably progressed alright, but so did Papa Rashids kids who were just like their dad
We closed our eyes to this.

Outsourcing blessings

As our parents retired from career and business due to their age
and as they sent us into the world with little or no money (because they had none to give)
they began to bless us with strange blessings

"My pikin, may God wipe away our tears of suffering and make your life better than ours"
"Amen" we said and set out into the world

We soon began to marry and give birth to kids ourselves
After a hard day's job we look at these kids just like our parents looked at us and then also outsource the blessings to them
"My pikin, may your life be better than ours. May God grant you wealth so that you do not go through horrible bosses like I have gone through"

The scale falls out of our eyes at different times in this life's journey
It is said that madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result
We the children of the religious have seen it all... we've paid our dues
What we've now got is a spirit of discernment
We might not know what works, but we know what doesn't work

Charting new courses for success

Probably,
the curse unto the 4th generation of unbelievers na im dey make some new followers become extreme sheep
while the blessings unto the 4th generation of believers na im dey make scale fall for our eyes

So while those whose family tree have only just recently encountered Christ and Chritianity
and are easilly excited by anything proceeding from their MOG's
We smile, knowing full well that we could equally and easily be these MOG's if we feel motivated to be that
We know for sure that if we chose to take on this MOG toga, all the blessings accrued from our Christian generations before us
can easilly be appropriated to us and our children thereafter as they new believers bring in their harvests


But since we've not chosen such a path, we are content to follow a different religiuos path that forces the blessings down now
For example, investing our money for the future of our kids so that they do not have empty pockets when they lay their hands on our grand children to bless them

..shalom