‘PRETENDERS DO THE WORST’

I have been at that point in my life when I inflicted myself with self condemnation and guilt that killed slowly and quietly. Why?

I was tired of people painting me as a pretender when I did wrong. They would say, “hmmm,we said it, pretenders do the worst. Don’t mind them, that’s how they do, na so dem dey do. They will act as if they cannot kill a fly but na dem sin pass”. You hear such phrases as, “Virginity is the lack of opportunity. If they get the opportunity, they would grab it with both hands and subtly”

Even when the opportunity presents itself everyday in the most fascinating, enticing and almost irresistible ways but what do they know?

So I doubted my salvation. The altar calls almost every Sunday or any huge program where I believed that at least God would hear me) saw me running for prayers of confessions. At some point, I lost it, I was tired. I was tired of repeating the same line of prayers because of guilt.

If I told a lie, then I never did give my life to Christ. If I took something without permission(steal), I never did change. Talk more when I began to develop feelings for the opposite sex, having the desire to be loved and cared for by someone who was not my brother or sister, someone special and different. The guilt grew for why should I feel such way and how would I mention it to anyone. This was uncalled for? I was a Christian, supposedly born again. But I was human. Why didn’t being born again take away such feelings? So I doubted my salvation, I probably was the pretender that was talked about in that phrase.

People are quick to call you pretender because they see your life as a challenge to them; A life that they desire to live but cannot or are not living. So they raise the bar of expectations (like they own you)  so that you can fall below them, thereby giving them some sense of comfort and relief that after all, you are not better than them.

I once wrote in my diary the words as shown in the image displayed below:

‘Pretenders do the worst….’

This phrase has brought a lot of Christians, especially young Christians (not just in terms of physical age) to a state of inner shame and guilt. Some have become tongue tied and leg tied, finding it difficult to approach the throne of grace because they actually begin to believe that they are pretenders who never really got born again.

These same people are your colleagues at work, friends, school mates, business associates, fellow traders and marketers, neighbors, etc. When they call you pretender, they mean to say you are supposed to be perfect, divine, supernatural, and never prone to making mistakes, always doing good and never failing or falling. Even though we daily pursue perfection, we are clothed in corruptible flesh. 

They appreciate the aura and grace you exude because when they need someone to talk to or say a prayer, they point at you. However, they would still appreciate it if you failed so they can remain comforted and satisfied in their sinful state.

In one argument with a neighbor one day, it happened to be a rare situation and so blurted, After now, you will say you are a Christian,……’

That is such cheap emotional blackmail that people use against Christians. ‘Excuse me sir, oh so you know that being a Christian is a good thing and makes people do good but you refuse to be one? Who is fooling who?

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Dear believer, just before you throw away your salvation and sanity because of some people who try cheap blackmail on you, you better get back to the cross, ask for mercy, confess your sins and do the necessary restitutions. He is faithful and just to forgive. Do not pack up your sins and mistakes thinking that God’s mercy is not for such a pretender as you.

These people do not follow you to the secret place where you commune with God. They do not know your relationship with Him.

May God have mercy.

Joy Oledika

@pentolifediary