“Testimony time!”
Bolanle was the first to raise her hand as the moderator of the service announced and immediately asked her to proceed to the altar.
With her fully glammed face beaming with smiles, she grabbed the microphone:
“Brethren, join me and thank the Lord, I just finished my NYSC last month and went for a job interview two weeks after. I didn’t prepare for it, I wasn’t ready at all. When I got there, I didn’t get any of the questions the interviewers asked me but I went home and prayed. Just yesterday they called me to say I have been offered the job and I’m to start work tomorrow. Praise the Lord!”
She handed over the microphone and majestically walked back to her seat.
Right where I was sitting, I smiled. I wish she went ahead to tell us the whole story.
Bolanle’s Father was the owner of the company and the interview was a mere formality. I believed God did it but she didn’t tell us the full story and I worried that young school leavers would now begin to think that is how God works- wake up, go for interview unprepared and get the job!
I remember when I had a very slim chance at passing a course in my third year in the university. I knew I didn’t write well in the exam, I was a bit confused in the exam hall about the methodology of the practical procedure so I closed the question paper and answered the question in my own way. This is something a student should never do!
I deserved to fail the course. I knew I would have to rewrite it because I wrote balderdash. This is one story in my life I am not very proud of.
But then, I still prayed to God for mercy. I wanted to pass but I deserved to fail. I couldn’t even tell anyone what had happened. In fact, before the results came out, I had a dream where I failed the course so I started preparing my mind to rewrite it.
When the results finally came out, I got a score that was the exact pass mark! 50! I was astonished! I knew it was the mercy of God. But I wouldn’t say today that I had a good mastery of the course. I wasn’t happy I scored so low that I narrowly escaped failing.
I learnt a life lesson that I have not forgotten: I’ll never enter an exam hall ill prepared and will not ask anyone to do same. I knew that I should have failed but for God’s mercy.
I would never come tomorrow and tell students to go ahead and play with their exams and trust God to perform a miracle for them.
God does intervene and in whichever way he chooses. But we must never paint him as a God that rewards incompetence and laziness.
Even when God shows us His mercy, we must go back and gain mastery or learn the art because in life, God is not just interested in doing things for us, He’s interested in our being part of the process of what He is doing.
He wants us to be excellent, committed and skillful at what we do. He doesn’t just want to churn out a batch of half baked, incompetent men and women.
Don’t give testimonies that mock God and depict him as one who blesses mediocrity and incompetence. He is an excellent God.
Next time, when sharing your testimony tell us the full story, don’t sugar coat it to make God look good. He is already a great God and we know that, He doesn’t need anyone to lie or fabricate stories to be in their good books.
God is not a magician! Don’t take His Grace for granted.
Have a blessed week!
