THE LONG WALK TO TRANSFORMATION - I

THE BEGINNING... THE VERY BEGINNING

“Change is like a volcano. You do not see the vibrations taking place underneath.” - Tana

The first line coming to my head is that portion where, it must have been Jesus who said, that “… in the beginning it was not so.” On the contrary, it has been so with me from the beginning. So, may I give you a background to how it all started?

According to accounts narrated by my mother, I was a smart kid. Unlike many children my age, I had begun to form speeches as early as seven – eight months old whereas I wouldn’t lift a foot to walk and did not do so until shortly after my first year birthday. For a baby, my speech was coherent and there is this joke about me always asking people “How are you?” so much so that an elderly woman from my hometown nicknamed me “How are you”. My other signature phrase was “naughty naughty”. I would call people ‘naughty’. Funny. Right? Well, I was too little to be able to remember if I did do that but thanks to my highly imaginative being, I have pictures and recollections of these memories as though my older self was there taking recordings.

As I grew older in age, this I remember, I began to ask questions. Wait a sec, does it not baffle you how you happened to drop here on earth? I mean, do you never wonder how you were formed – in the image of the one you cannot see and do not know, so to speak? I questioned many things – everything. I asked why until all 'whys' were exhausted. As a matter of fact, my 'whys' were never exhausted. Why? (There it is...!😃) Because the adults (read that as “my mother”) would shut me down with stern warnings to never ask such again. Ask me what my questions usually were. I’ll tell you.

I wanted to know who God is. How did he create/form us? Where did this process of creation take place? When did he embark on this project? What did he use? How was he able to do it? More importantly, where is he? And most importantly, where was he before he decided to come and create us? Who created him or how did he form? (Pun intended and not.)

Those were some of my questions. I say some, because I had several questions. I always did. But for the sake of this writing, we will focus on only those related to the topic of discourse.

I do not blame the adults. They did not know better. Or they did not have the answers themselves. This I now know. And rather than go on a quest for answers, they preferred not to question the status quo. Like my mother used to tell me whenever I questioned a belief, philosophy or one of her several superstitions, “that is how it has been from the time of our forefathers.” The silent conclusion of the statement is, “who are you to question its authenticity now?” You see, that is how many people live today. They said and so it is. It is written and so it is. You don’t care to ask or know who said or wrote it, when, how and why? What if it is not true or it isn’t the truth? You are not curious to know? Oh, I digress!

Yes, my questionnaire (another one of my nicknames) guts were sealed and as life got in the way of my formative years, I became rather timid. Quiet. Shy. With low self-esteem. I did not believe in myself and I did not believe anyone else. Trust issues, they call it. Still I tried to exist, at least, with a deep yearning down, down in my soul, wanting more. Speaking of background, the average Nigerian grows up grounded in one religion or another, the major ones being Christianity and Islam. I was raised as a Christian - grew up attending a popular Pentecostal church. The doctrines were rigid. For those who know, you know. If you don’t, bear with my reluctance to reveal the name of the denomination. There were many don’ts with a measurable expectation of dos. To God, I hate regiments and routines! But I managed. I endured it.

When I was eleven years old, my family relocated from Lagos to Ogun State. It was a quiet environment, referred to as a “new site”. Fortunately – or not, we found a local district (parish, if you may) of the denomination we attended in Lagos and continued attendance there. Life felt slow-paced in a fast way. I could not wait to be all grown and independent, on my own and doing my own stuff. I wanted to get away badly. So, I waited for when I would be going to the university. My ticket to independence! But before that happened, I had to endure the shackles of growing up under a tough mother and equally terrifying church.

Nearly every conference and meeting found me running to the altar to confess my sins and give my life to Jesus again. I think many children and young teenagers must have done this at some point. The descriptions of hell were too gory that you just knew you did not want to be there even though you do not remember that the parallel destination where you should aim to be is heaven. You only remember there is hell and it is not your dream destination. You instantly remember how you called that classmate of yours a goat and reckon that god must be utterly angry with his face spitting fire, and as for me whose only identifiable sins were the secret pent up anger, resentments (all stemming from continuing sadness), I imagined that god was heating up the fire up to times seven to sear out my rationalized irrational anger.

Over and again, I went to fall at the feet of Jesus right at the pastor’s heels and confess all my sins – past, present and future. Somehow, I must have thought that I wasn’t going to stop being angry and decided it was better to confess them ahead. But the spoiler? We would be reminded next Sunday that the grace of yesterday is not sufficient for today. Wait, what? Did you not say that Jesus already died to take away all my sins and that his grace is more than sufficient? How come the grace finishes and cannot last me through to the following day? I don’t understand y’all, man.

It made no sense to me that the sins for tomorrow were not already covered on the cross; that I needed to go and get some blood to wash me clean every single day. I know they say that you should endeavour not to sin, but is that not why Jesus came to sacrifice himself - because he knew that man would always sin? Look, I am not trying to offend your beliefs; I'll just let you think about it. However, if you asked me what I think now, I would reply you with a question - What is sin?

As for my own definition of sin, come find out.