THERE'S NO HEALING WITHOUT A TURNING

By Akin Ojumu

What exactly does it mean to say, “We are going to turn to God,” or “We are trusting God?” 

Our society is one where fraud and fraudulent activities run rampant.

Our people lie and cheat with no sense of guilt.

To trust anyone is to leave yourself vulnerable and a sucker to be had and defrauded.

We cut corners at every turn and break the rules at all times.

There’s idolatry in our cities and wickedness in our families.

Brothers use their brothers in rituals to acquire wealth.

Sisters kill their sisters’ children out of sheer malice.

Friends entrusted by friends to help handle projects quite often run away with the funds leaving the work undone.

Yahoo boys use their God's given ingenuity to defraud others of their hard earned resources.

The market women sell adulterated foods to unwitting customers, and the butchers sell as beef meats from dead dogs they picked up from the roadside.

Counterfeit drugs are sold as genuine medicine and those that use them never get better and often die.

The bank owners steal depositors’ money and quickly declare bankruptcy.

The employers of labor cheat their workers of their wages and fail to pay them their due, even after putting in the hours of their sweat and labor.

In the society, criminals are celebrated and honored who wake up in the morning dirt poor and go to bed at night multi-currency millionaires.

The houses of worship are places people go to baptize their evil deeds and sanctify their ill-gotten wealth.

Those who claim to worship God leave Church services and head straight to herbalist homes to seek quick power.

People bring money illicitly gained to Church to pay tithes and offerings and are offered the most prominent seats of all.

The faith healers who claim to receive visions from God have dead bodies buried under the Church pulpits and the blood of animals killed in ritual sacrifice are sprinkled all over the Church pews.

The men of God that call themselves prophets consider sleeping with the wives of Church members one of the rewards of the office, and when their secrets are revealed resort to threats and curses against those who shine the light of truth on their amoral lives.

Our people crowd the revival services bringing their buckets of holy water and troop to the Holy Ghost services with jerrycans of anointing oil.

They then return home to pour the water of crookedness on every path they tread and rub their oil of devilishness on everything they touch.

Those that determine to live their lives guided by sound ethics are daily laughed to scorn.

The few that choose to stand on strong values are derided and mocked for acting as though they live in Oyinbo man’s land.

These are the ways of our people. It is how they live each and every day.

This is how the man and woman you encounter on a daily basis conduct themselves.

These are what your neighbors do.

These are the ways of your co-workers.

It is how your business partners run the business.

Look in your family, you’ll find that many of these depravities are there.

This evil is in the Church you attend.

It is among the congregation you pastor.

So, tell me how people this evil can ever trust God? Which God are you turning to with hearts full of so much wickedness?

Let us not deceive ourselves. Nigerians know absolutely nothing about trusting or turning to God.

They tempt fate every day and they say they have faith in God.

We are evil people. This is exactly why our country is in such a morass.

Asking God to bless the works of our hands is to invite God's wrath upon ourselves, because the works of our hands are consistently evil and our ways our persistently wicked.

Blaming the leaders and those in authority for our woes is self-delusion when our streets are paved with cruelty and our roads are lit with corruption.

Before we ask God to deliver us from bad leaders, we must first need to be delivered from ourselves.

For us to truly to turn to God, we must first turn from the degeneracy in our own lives.

Until we repent of our sins and quit our evil ways, our nation will continue to rot in the muck.

God is not going to heal our land if we don't first turn from our wicked ways.