Verify Podcast

Sometime last year, a prominent clergy man in Nigeria lost his adult first son. In the days that followed, social media was awash with all shades of comments. Many were in shock and clearly sympathetic as should be, but there were some who faulted his standing with God, because according to them, he should have known before time, that the unfortunate incident would happen, and perhaps somehow avert it. I was particularly saddened by those comments directed at a grieving man, but I wasn’t altogether surprised, because it was not my first time of hearing that kind of sentiment. Many today expect pastors to have answers to every question and should they have a prophetic gifting, they expect that they should know everything about the future.

I believe that some religious leaders have themselves, by their utterances, fuelled this narrative, and left many people with the illusion that they have answers to everything. But guess what, the bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:11b, that people cannot discover what God has ordained, from the beginning to the end of their lives. The Good News Translation says God never gives us the satisfaction of fully understanding what he does. Moses in talking to the children of Israel, said in Deuteronomy 29:29a, that God has secrets known to no one. This means that pastors don’t know everything. They aren’t even supposed to! There are of course, genuine prophets, to whom God reveals things supernaturally, but no matter how gifted, because they are human, they only see in part and are sometimes limited in understanding (1 Cor 13:9, 2 Kings 4:27, 1 Sam 16:6 & 7).

So basically, no matter how knowledgeable one is, we must come to terms with the fact that there are some things we will never know or understand on this side of eternity. Whether we are priests or laity, a lot that happens in this life will only be understood in the next.