BLOCK IM EYE

Hello everybody. I hope you’re feeling fine?

Hello everybody. I hope you’re feeling, feeling, feeling, I hope you’re feeling fine?

Welcome to today’s gist, it’s me this week sha, manage me.

We humans are a funny species.

I live in a majorly student-populated environment and there’s something I’ve observed every year since I’ve been living there. There are at least 10 churches and fellowships in the area I live, this means that no matter the denomination a person worships with, they could find a church that they agree with to attend every Sunday.

The typical Sunday crowd is not much in this environment is typically not much; if you could take a count, less than half of the student population goes to church every Sunday.

Then exams come!

The Sunday before exams always makes me laugh.

It always seems like compounds are vomiting people, everywhere you turn, you meet people filing out to attend church; the churches have such a large number of attendees they would almost be bursting at the seams: people would even be sitting outside! Everyone comes to receive pre-exam blessings.

I was talking about it with my sister one time and we were talking about how laughable it is that people just assume that because they attend church the day before exams, they get an automatic ticket to passing their exams. And I always think, “if success in exams was really dependent on going to church alone, what makes these people think that going to church that last day before exams will erase the fact that they had skipped church the entire semester?” It almost seems like we think God is a fool, or at least not smart enough to detect the ‘hidden’ intention behind this renewed decision to attend church that only seems to occur when exams are near.

You know the crazy part? Most of these people do not go to church after that first Sunday! E be like say for their mind, dem dey reason say dem don use that one Sunday ‘block God eye’.

This is not something only the students in my environment do.

Shop owners in this environment do that too. Every morning, on my way to church I pass by a number of shops and all of them are operating in full swing like every other day. One of the saddest things about this for me is the fact that these people come to the shops with their children most times and, even for the ones who do not bring their children, they are raising their children without much regard for God.

A couple of months ago, I noticed that one man began to attend church on Sundays and it made me so happy! It was during the break for the elections and my sister was in Makurdi, I remember telling her one day while we were talking that the man had begun going to church and she was happy too.

Only for school to resume properly and I realized one day on my way to church that the man had begun opening his shop early on Sunday mornings again.

At first I thought it was something that happened that day only and I made a point to check every Sunday and guess what?

The man had begun opening his shop on Sundays again. Turns out it was the fact that students had gone home and the customer base had dwindled that prompted him to go back to church. And when students had resumed and the customer base came back, he stopped going to church in favour of opening his shop to attend to his customers.

In my mind I wondered “so when God blesses you, the response is to become scarce and to be available for Him only when you don’t have anything else taking up your time?”

As easy as it is to want to criticize these people for attempting to pull a fast one on God, we do that too.

Many times, we seem to think that God doesn’t understand the hidden motives behind our actions, that we’re so slick He doesn’t notice or something. Sometimes, it seems that we’re thinking that we can be doing so much in madness yet one seemingly sensible act, whose sensibility is negated by tour motive, will prevent God from seeing.

Well, let me just burst your bubble!

God sees the hidden intent of our hearts. Speaking to Samuel in 1 Samuel 16, God says “…For man sees the outward appearance, but the Lord sees the heart.” (verse 7b, BSB). Also the Bible states in Galatians 6:7 “Do not be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” (WEBUS)

What this means last last is that we cannot hide anything from God, He sees everything and is privy to even the things we would rather not have Him know.

So, rather try to pretend and attempt to pull a fast one on God, I advise that you come to Him in honesty and humility, show Him your unfiltered version, that’s what He sees either way, and let Him work on and in you.

There’s a song that says “you cannot hide it from God”, so since you cannot, just honestly come to Him and find succor in Him which can only be found when you honestly seek Him (Hebrews 11:6)

Thank you for reading up till this point, see you next week!

 

Love,

Achenyo.

PS. It’s 19 days to my final exams!