Belief

This is not your typical I was lost and now I am found through God post. I am not against those and I am happy for everyone that have found themselves because of a spiritual journey but the other side of the story never gets told does it?

I am Nigerian and if you ask me what religion do I follow, I would answer none. I go to mosque regularly and I have been doing so from late 2012 but I do not relate with the religion. As some African kids, my story has been switching from one religion to the other. My dad is a Muslim and my mum is a Christian so I have known both parts through my life, Christianity the most. It confused me so much because I have been to different types of churches, some say you cannot wear a certain colour, some say you cannot wear shoes in the room. Yes they say there is only one God but they both have different ways to show their belief and life has not made it possible for me to believe in a higher being.

One of my earliest pieces of writing was about God and religion, I wrote it around the age of 16-17 and I will quote some of it. “You were sleeping, wow I thought you never slept. Guess you was overdosed on sleeping pills like MJ & your faith was the same, it killed you two…killed you in my life” and “God when I needed you most you didn’t answer, you said knock and it shall be opened. My soul was knocking, even kicking, in great frustration a boy had to result to a headbutt. Guess that’s why my head is messed, jumbled, scrambled like an egg that’s lost its joint form”. As you can see I was an angry defeated boy that really just wanted some answers and most likely love and attention if I am honest. The rest of the piece is filled with many more similar outbursts.

My idea of God was once “oh all I have to do is pray and it shall be answered” that is most people’s idea of God because they have been taught to pray and because he always listens and never sleeps, your prayers will be answered. Sorry to say to you but that is not true. To me that is a spoilt child’s expectation from his or her parents, “well mummy I asked and I begged for a new toy so you must get it for me”. Is that not the way people think of God? That is the way I once thought of God and when things do not work out the way they imagined, when things did not work out the way I imagined. I got angry and blamed it all on him (Is God a male?) that is what tends to happen with everyone that thinks of God in that way and they then begin to lose faith. If you ask atheists why they lack faith in God, the majority would tell you the God they were told about or read about was not who they were led to believe or lost hope.

The idea of God to me has changed, it is not what I was taught and told as a kid. I still believe God created us and supposedly due to Adam and Eve (I do not entirely believe in this) we were given the ability to think and we were given free will. Adam and Eve did not know they were naked till they ate the forbidden fruit right? God does not interfere with what we do, he watches things unfold and sometimes he may decide to intervene. Our lives is basically a reality show if we are going to believe this theory.

I am a firm believer in predestined stories or life paths. Let me paint you a picture, imagine your soul before you were born lined up against other souls. Now imagine a box of straws in front of you and being told to pick one, if you draw the shortest straw then your predestined path is the worst and if you draw the longest straw then you have the best / a better path. It could just be as simple as picking numbers out of a bowl and being assigned to a storyline. We do not only have one storyline though, we have multiple, maybe even hundreds and with that, multiple endings but you cannot make up your own original ending. The end is set in stone, this is based on our daily decisions. This is why God in my opinion does not intervene all the time. You have the freedom and some resources to make the most of life and pick where you would like to end up so why should he help? People say they have worked very hard and their life have amounted to nothing, well maybe they did not work hard enough or God was just not willing to write a new storyline for them. It is that blunt, he is the creator after all?

I saw an article in the newspaper a couple of days ago that made me sick. It was about a married couple given a jail sentence because they chose not to take their ill daughter to the hospital but entrusted her wellbeing in the hands of a spiritual healer and the child ended up dead after three days, they go to a church that goes against medicinal treatments. First of all, this case is seen as a child neglect case but what kind of church does not believe in medicinal treatments, what kind of pastor preaches such stupidity. You might all say it is the parents fault and blame it on them for choosing to believe and I do too to an extent. Faith in some ways is good but it can be so blinding that you are not really living in reality. The spiritual healer they entrusted their kid with might not be of God and maybe could have been through witchcraft and so could have been their church but lets say they are of God and they are firm believers of his word. Why did the child die, surely this is a more than reasonable time to intervene? I do not care how short the straw she picked was, a 3 year old does not deserve such because her parents put their trust in God but obviously I do not know that for sure.

I was once a boy that thought the answer to all my problems was to pray and things shall fall into place, people I know also used to think like that. I do not believe in religion whatsoever but I do believe in God, a higher being. I understand religion offers people stability and hope. If it was possible I would change the teachings that kids receive because too many people are getting lost in a maze that they will not be able to escape by themselves, because of the teachings of their leaders and the images that have been painted for them about God. I have grown to know that you have to work and just hope the straw you picked before you were born is long enough for you to be all that you desire or that God is willing to write you a new storyline and if God is truly what the Bible and Qur’an states, I would not mind a divine intervention.

Hak Gway