I Am A Christian, But I Use My God-Given Brain
It was the wilderness years of childlessness. A colleague who heard our story of losing our first child at 14 months, followed by miscarriages, invited us to a night vigil at his church.
Following the service, he told me his Pastor would like to see us, and we obliged. After some prayers, the Pastor began to explain what, according to him, he saw in the spirit.
I Digress
I was born into and grew up in The Apostolic Church. I was immersed right from a very young age in a spirit-filled and prophecy believing environment. When you hear the words “Bayi Ni Oluwa Wi” (Thus Sayeth The Lord), you know the Lord is truly speaking. Those who know me in my younger days, people like Stephen Kosh with whom I was active in both the Choir and Youth Movement, would sometimes allude that leaving Nigeria stopped me from becoming an ordained minister in God’s vineyard, even though I do not believe that is in God’s plan for me.
One of the gifts of the spirit is the discernment of tongues. Even then, in those days of real men of God, there were crooks trying to masquerade as prophets in The Apostolic Church. It was not unusual for the bell to ring as soon as such false prophecy starts, to stop the man or woman in his/her track.
Back to My Story
I listened with rapt attention as my London-based Pastor reeled out what he claimed to have seen in the spirit. 1, 2, 3, 4… By the time he would get to identify what he saw as the root of our predicament, our childlessness, I already knew a fake, and a quack was in front of me.
When he asked me to go and bring my mother as the root of our problem – a woman that was already at the bosom of her saviour, a woman whose physical and spiritual sacrifices I know first-hand, a mother that every single day I cry for because she never enjoyed the fruits of her long-suffering as well as labour over her children and many others – it took a lot of calmness and lack of facial expression to hide my disgust.
Many families, many marriages and many lives have been ruined by Tifunloran fake prophets masquerading as ‘men of God’. It is your responsibility to ensure you are not part of that statistics.
I Remain A Christian, But I Use My God-Given Brain.