God’s vision cannot be snuffed out by mere mortals. It must be accomplished because He is the almighty. Believe me when I say I’m not preaching or evangelising so I ask you to please hold on; I’m going somewhere with this.
Our parish holds its own proverbial “feeding of the five thousand” on a quarterly basis. Admittedly our “five loaves of bread and two fishes” haven’t yet miraculously multiplied to feed the multitude that come but just how we come by the resources in these trying times to fulfil this noble assignment is nothing short of a miracle in itself. Although we are yet to witness an instant doubling of parish members after each programme but the visible delight written over the faces of those who come makes it all worthwhile. Not unexpectedly, a few members have grumbled in the past that the resources expended could be put to “better” use especially as we’re still endeavouring to complete our church building project.
Pastor’s response to such remarks was quite typical of him: “The fact that people come in such large numbers, some even arriving as early as 5am, knowing very well our first Sunday service doesn’t start until 7am; nothing is given out until the second service ends around 11.30am, yet they wait ever so patiently, only goes to show that it’s much needed and a significant material need is being met.”(Neighbourly love). At the last program, over nine hundred people received a pack enough to feed a family containing raw chicken, uncooked rice, vegetable oil and one toilet roll.
Prosperity of the soul, by doing the will of God beats all other forms of prosperity because that is the only one that actually matters to Him. This, without doubt is “Good Success”. Success in life should never be judged solely by what you have accomplished for yourself. Personal success should not be taken in isolation but should be seen as just one small piece in the gigantic jigsaw puzzle called “Life”. No matter what you own or achieve in life, if you don’t leave this world better than you met it, can that be deemed true success?
Speaking to this Shannon L. Adler once said: “Carve your name on hearts, not on tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.” True success touches lives and it does so positively. Our aim and obligation, should be to use our God given gifts, ordained positions in life and the resources God has given us the power to create, to better the lot of our society, with the understanding that when our society prospers, so do we (Neighbourly love). Such an outlook would bode well for us as a nation.
I have a recommendation which you would be hard pressed to find anyone more guilty of not doing than myself and it’s this; I strongly believe it would do us the world of good if we could all focus more of our attention when in prayer both in private and in our places of worship towards the elevation of our society rather than just ourselves (Neighbourly love). The direction in which you channel most of your prayers is likely to be the direction in which you think much of the time so it stands to reason that if ninety percent of your prayers are centred around you, so will most of your thoughts and your actions will naturally follow suit.
Unfortunately, our leaders in just about all the different spheres of society, religion included, have set us terrible examples to follow. I’ve dedicated a great deal of time trying to ascertain what the primary problem of our society is; that one thing which if universally identified and corrected would reverse our nation’s gradual descent to the abyss; that one thing which if taken out of the equation, other salient issues would whip into line and conclusively arrived at this, self-centeredness.
I know this can by no means serve as a panacea to all our problems as a society but I do wish our schools, starting from Primary through Secondary could just experiment with a suggestion I made in an earlier article which is to introduce team sports as an integral part of school life. Please don’t look at me like that. After all, I was honest enough to admit in a previous article that the solutions I proffer are always simple because I’m really not clever enough to think of super grandiose solutions. But sometimes, the simple ones can do just fine. If this was done, I strongly believe we would see a significant difference in the mindset of our children, being our future leaders. And this is sure to positively reflect in their behaviour and the way they treat others as they grow up (neighbourly love and discipline).
Team sports compel you to subsume your selfish interest while putting that of the team, which is the greater good, first. They will learn that the team can only succeed when all work together (Discipline) and you can only truly succeed as an individual when your team succeeds. So too a society. You scoring a spectacular goal when your team loses 5-1 doesn’t by the stretch of even the wildest imagination make you a success. The values we teach our children will not only determine who they’ll become but just as importantly, they will also determine the sort of society they’ll eventually create. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, as I’ve quoted Professor Anigbogu on this before: “What determines whether a nation will develop or not is the value system by which it abides or refuses to abide by?”
What is required is to develop further strategies in addition to this embarrassingly simple one of mine, that will help the younger generation develop a more society focused mindset. One that teaches them from a tender age the importance of being responsible for themselves and to each other. Strategies potent enough to combat and change the current extremely defective collective mindset.
Changing the nation…one mind at a time.
OLADAPO AKANDE
