To tithe or not to tithe?

I often ponder the above,  i ask myself if i am a bad person/ christian because i don't tithe, but  am not convinced at all on this,  i have read that malachi chapter on tithing several times and just as i do not fulfil each and every requirement in the bible i do not feel obliged to tithe and i don't and will never get why the new age church leaders like to hammer this point so strongly.  It raises the question "are they really doing this for God or  for their own sake"  anyway don't want to judge any body and don't nobody judge me.

i have this older friend of mine who is a jim jim born again, the baba tells me that everything in the bible is black and white and that i should not add to it, i tell him that the bible is indeed the word of God and the precepts/ opinion of men. he will  argue and argue that everything in there is the word of God, well i tell him ok baba when paul advised the people to stay celibate and not marry, did he not say that was his own advise, baba go quiet, well he will also go on and on about tithing and how i am robbing God and that it is the word of God and i must obey it.  I just ask baba why he wears different colors given that in the laws God said you should  not wear clothes of different colors, baba go keep quiet.  He tells me not to compromise by voting for liberals who dont believe in God but as a christian, the burden is on me to vote conservatives who believe in God and do the right thing.  i just reply baba by telling him that i see no charity in the conservatives and to me they are not christians that even though the liberals say a different thing they are the ones who actually act as Christians.

My baba is so funny that he tries so hard not to sin but sin sometimes find him and i make sure i point it out to him and of course he cant  do the same to me because i never pretended to be perfect, i hope i am not spoiling the old man cause i got him to be less rigid and relax a little bit,  i said to him baba you don't have to work too hard ' cause someone already paid the price and our God's love is unconditional so please do not love God out of the fear of hell but fear him out of love.  So tithe or no tithe God loves you and he really does not get that money, someone else is using it to buy jet and build mansions while the children of God are suffering with nobody to alleviate their sufferings and pain.  i do not think out God meant for that to happen since he is a loving father who cares for his children.  Please adopt a charity and do Gods work by helping the needy today.

why you got to pontificate to me.

I always wonder why people take things so seriously especially religion.  I have these friends who are supposedly born again, is it just me or many people of this belief many times appear arrogant.  This begs the question, why do many people who are deeply enmeshed in their faith come across as very rigid, unyeilding and with an attitude of my God is bigger than your God hence your God has to bow to mine.  Have they all paused to ponder why we have all these religious conflicts in the world.  The deeply catholic will say the protestants will not make heaven because they are not catholics hence not the original church, the protestants say the catholics have lost their ways and have become a form of worship in idolatry and the penticostals will say the catholics are idol worshppers and the protestants are lukewarm christians.  The worst will be Muslims are murderers/ terrorists, idolaters and to the muslims the christians are kafris who do not know God, dont evewn let me start on the Budhists and jews and Krishna/ all eastern religions.

The above is the reason why politcians will contnue to use wedge issues to divide and conquer the world and toy with the mind of the ignorant in the society to achieve their aims. For political reasons the Hausa Fulani will use religion as a wedge issue to divide the north and the south in Nigeria so they can use the strategy to achieve their aim in elections,  in America the Southern republican politicians/ conservative will use this to entrench their racist ideology under the guise of conservative christian faith that show no love/charity.  Islamic leaders will use this to enrich themselves to the detriment of the masses who are meant to be poor because that is the will of allah and the sharia laws will contnously be used to harvet the limbs of the poor people in the populace while the real thief the politician is walking about free to continue his/her plundering.

Can we use our brains that God gave us instead of stupidly following the pope, the Bishops, the imams, oversears and all religious leaders to our own detriment sometimes they appear to me to be tools that are used to control the mind of the people, dont get me wrong this does not mean that i don't believe in God but can we believe in God without losing our senses?  According to my 6 year old, she told my son when they were discussing medcne that God gave us the brain to make things like car and medicine and all the things that make life better for us so that we do not disturnb him for mundane things because he has already answered the prayers by teaching us to do all these things.

The Continental Africans from the western perspective.

A few years back when i first travelled to obodo oyibo, the image of continental Africa that was being constantly shown on the TV was always that of a critical state of great poverty and hopelessness.  My sister was so moved that one day she started copying down the phone # on the screen and was intending to call to make a donation to save the poor African children, while she was doing that my older brother came in and asked what she was doing, she told him she was about giving money to the poor children in some east african country.  My brother burst in to laughter and told her not to bother and reserve her money to assist our family members who might need it if she feel so much like spending her money, he went on to explain to us that it will never end cause this is what she will continue seeing on TV till she leaves and that some are legitimate yahoo yahoo.  He went ahead to explain to us how some of the kids on those videos have been like that for ages, he showed us the one with Kizito and his siblings and explained how kizitos situation has not improved in years and how he is still 10 years old since 5 years ago, he also used example of others in South America.

Anytime they want to bring up an image of any part of Africa they look for the dirtest, dingiest place to show on TV  but if its vice versa they give you a very  beautiful and well packaged glossy image of their own country and our people will conitnue to sprout what they dont know just because they are watching some well package image on cable.  what our people dont get is that these people are bent on selling the stereotype of the stupid African who can do nothing for himself and an accomplished caucasian who is a god and can excel in all things and unfortunately our leaders keep falling into this trap by amassing so much for themselves to the detriment of who they are supposed to be serving and dumping it in the land of those who see them as stupid, uncultured aand ignorant fellows who borrow these money and use it for their own goals.

where is naija's orji?

My older siblings told me a story of a long long time ago, in my village of umuomaku, long before we set head in that land, in the days of our fathers.  They said there was a very big Orji tree close to the Arunsi(gods of the heathern so to say) house, the largest tree in that neighbourhood.  They said that this tree was so tall and mystical that if any indigene of that village was to by any chance lose their way in the forest or distant land and wants to get back home, they begin to see  visions of that tall tree before them and it eventually leads them home.  Of course i never ever saw this tree, but i was told that the tree was cut down in the 60s when christianity began to gain grounds in the village. 

The moral of this is to explore what this tree signified in the life of the people, it was a beacon of hope and of course their beleif in it helped them to get home.  It calls to my mind a parallel with  Nigeria of today and the diasporan Nigerans.  What would be a beacon of hope for the diasporans to go back home?  Will it be the dilapidated infrastructure, worse than it was when they left or the hopelessness of the situation with politcians helping themselves to the coffers of the treasury and stealing everybody blind, or will it be the endemic corruption in the fabric of the society or the incessant stories of kidnappers/ men of the underworld terrorizing innocent citizens  or the myriad of bombings which has turned the latest fad in the society or everybody agitating for one thing or the other with force as the means to get to their end or will it be those that have looted us blind before, coming back to seek rulership at the detriment of the people who they seek to rule.  who will save my dear country Nigeria from the grip of these wickedness.  where is the Orji of today to draw the people far away back to the land they so long to see.

 guess it behoves me and others to think not of what our country can do for us but that which we can do for our country, a quote from  the famous words of President JF Kennedy.

funny questions kids ask

sometimes i wonder what goes on in my sons head, the questions he tends to ask many times get me going okayyyyyy cause i have no answers.  Let me list a few of them and hope to get answers to them.

1. Question: where does God live

Moi: In heaven, on earth and everywhere

 Question : so where is he since you say he is everywhere, can he come out of wherever he is hiding cause i want to talk to him.

Moi:lol i don't know when you go to church ask your catechism teacher.

we were discussing rocks and how they are formed and while discussing sedimentary rocks we somehow got to talk about mudslides and flooding he asked me this
 Question : Are you telling me excessive rain leads to flooding and it kills people.

Moi: yes and proceeded to tell him about the recent pakistani flood disaster. 

Question:  so why does this happen?

someone actually tried to explain the Noah deluge to him and how God said he would never destroy the world that way again and you guessed right his next question was

Question; A ha  so can someone explain to me what happened in Pakistan, are you telling me that God lied or is that not the same thing he said he will never do again.

Moi : abeg ooo, i nor know maybe he meant the whole world, please if you know the answers to his questions let me know i don't know if am smart enough for this small boy.

why are women sometimes soooo desperate.

you know i wonder why some women are so desperate sometimes that they just let go of their reasoning faculty.  A lady friend of mine wanted so badly to get married that she just let go of her senses ,and can you believe that she was just 29 when she was so bent on her stupidity.  na like this the story happin oo.

This 29 year old travelled abroad in the early 2000s and contrary to her belief before she left naija, there were not many eligble bachelors in the obodo oyibo , many of the men she met were either already married or had two to three baby mamas, na so the babe just taya.  After spending about 2 years abroad with no man, she decided to give this fine gentleman a chance, the man was cool and everything but the only snag in their relationship was that the man had a baby mama who he told her was just an ex. 

Anywho me i told her that hmmm once an ex most times translate to always an ex especially if their is a baby between.  My friend was inlave, she nor wan hear.  okay fast forward to about 8 months later, she was pregnant and surprisingly the ex too was expecting with my friend just a few months ahead.  friend came to my house weeping and cursing, me i just screamed miracle!! afterall she told me  her man and the ex were just friends and nothing more .  Well sorry that must be an immaculate conception then.  Now she is stuck in the relationship and she is baby mama #2.

Are leaders a reflection of the people?

I wonder sometimes why Africa has such horrible leaders, then it dawned on me, the leaders are a relection of the society.  Why would Nigerans expect a good leader when

1. People glorify wealth so much without questioning the source.  praise singers everywhere and a public official that is not so rich is vilified e.g a conversation between the 2 friends.

friend 1 :  Did you see Mr Omoboriowo, upon say the man be perm sec and im don work for government as oga tey, na jalopi 504 im dey drive.

friend 2 : Nor mind am, all im mate dey build house like bird everywhere im get one chekere house for inside bush dey drive jalopi 504, small thng remain na leg im for dey take waka about town, you know whether dem don swear for that one.

2.people complain about the greediness of politcians but have they paused to think about themselves.  Everybody wan show say im hold moni for hand, my car is bigger than your car, my house is more beautiful, my bag na designer, your own na Aba made, my owambe beat your own hands down syndrome is killng our people, so tey to inorder to harmer go to any /every extent to make money (yahoo yahoo, rituals, embezzlement), then how the hell are you gon complain about the politcians.  Even naija pastors nor carry last for this one.  Many Nigerians in the diaspora are not different either, i listen in when some men are conversing about their travels to naija and all they keep on talking about is how they want to run for office and embezzle their own share of the national cake, oga oo only God will save naija oo.

I had the following discussion with a friend of mine who met a relative of IBB on one of his travels to Japan, prior to his meeting with this woman, he told me the men were having a heated discussion on IBB and how evil he was during his presidency and his was the loudest heaping all forms of curses on the evil genius, unknowingly the woman across from them was his inlaw and when he boarded his plane, the lady walked up to him and said " do you really know IBB like that for you to be so mean" and he replied no.  the lady now introduced herself and told him that IBB was related to her, she further explained how he is a good man and the victim of his environment and should not be judged so harshly.  My friend said he started apologising profusely and told the lady he did not mean to be so mean and never meant to say such derogatory and mean things about IBB and that he did that due to peer influence at the airport lounge. 

 could not believe my ears, i just told him that i was a little bit dissapointed in him, i said would it have been too much f he told the lady a few truths about how people generally view her inlaw, a large populaton of people would not be so wrong, i told him he could have told her how he stole our money and did not do anything for the people, ok even if he could not help the peolple, he could have provided the infrastrcture needed for the people to pick themselves by their boot strings and help themselves by providing infrastructure and lastly he could have built a very well equiped hospital with state of the earth equipments so that even politicians would be able to use those kind of hospitals instead of wasting tax payer money to travel abroad for a common cold and maybe just maybe that could have saved his wife's life as her cancer could have been detected earlier and that could have saved her life.

This s not a generalizaton on all naija/Africans oo, i know that there are good ones out there with integrity but i just dont know anymore........