Leadership, The First Born, and Joy

For as long as there was silence, Egypt felt it was right to keep Israel as a slave

The Bible recorded that the moment the children of Israel began to groan to God in prayer, a saviour was sent in the person of Moses

For as long as there was silence, Babylon felt it was right to keep Israel as a slave

The Bible recorded that the moment Nehemiah got news about the state of Israel and took to fasting and prayer for three days to plead his cause before the King, he set in motion a chain of events that led to the restoration of the nation of Israel, the rebuilding of the wall, the temple and his elevation as the prime minister of the nation

Silence can be wisdom

Silence can also be a tacit endorsement of evil, especially when the silence comes from those with the power and influence to correct a wrong

When Mandela was in captivity, the world was silent for a while and then the people began to call the attention of the powerful to the evil of apartheid through music, protests, and demonstrations

If they had kept quiet, the world would have ignored

The more they protested, the more uneasy the powers that be became and this eventually led to the release of Madiba

What about Martin Luther King Junior and the evil of segregation in America?

What about Risa Parks and the refusal to keep quiet in the face of obvious inhuman treatment and racism?

As long as silence reigned, evil reigned

Evil hates being challenged because it knows it has no legal standing

Good does not mind scrutiny, sometimes it takes uneasy decisions but defends it with its transparency

To allow a despot, an abusive leader, and a tyrant who happens to be the first child in a family and insist such an individual should continue to lead his or her siblings even though the leadership of such has been divisive, abusive, unproductive, stifling and hateful in the name of he or she was born first (Unmerited and unearned leadership) is wrong

A tradition that encourages such leadership cannot be said to be either progressive or right-thinking

Proverbs 11:10

When it goeth well with the tzaddikim, the city rejoiceth, and when the resha’im perish, there is rinnah (joyful shouting).

Tzaddikim – Righteous/Upright

Resha’im -Wicked/ungodly

Rinnah – Joyful Shouting or shouts of Joy

It is one of the banes of the Yoruba traditional system of leadership which encourages age to lead even when it has been proven to be lacking in wisdom or efficiency

A young lady reached out to me about the conduct of her father’s first son after the death of her father

The deceased was modestly wealthy and he married two wives

The properties the man left behind were set up to cater to the needs of both the children of the first and the second wife for life

They were all placed on salaries and the salaries came from the profit made from the businesses the man left behind

The first son who was placed in charge of coordination of this process started selling off the properties one by one

He was not selling them off to reinvest the money in other businesses or to share the proceeds with his siblings

He was selling them off the properties and spending the money on the vanities of life

The young lady stood up to him in a family meeting

He told her to go to hell

She came to me and I got her a lawyer

She said she didn’t want to be the one to drag the family to court

I said you will be a victim if you don’t challenge him in court

They went to court and he was made to refund every penny he sold the properties for into the family’s account

Silence would have led the entire family down a path of regret

The longer you keep silent for tyrants, the longer your days of suffering

You must learn not to be quiet in the face of oppression

Wicked leaders create a wasteland and they call it peace or better put wicked leaders hate to be challenged and they would rather oppress their followers and pretend they are thriving than tolerate any voice that tells them the truth about what they stand for

When I was an undergraduate, I had a friend

This friend was a first-class student, she was gifted with a photographic memory and by every standard was going to graduate with a first-class from our set while we were in the university

She had a very bad habit

When she reads a book from our department in the library and finds it quite informative, she would then go and hide the book on the shelf of another department so that other students from our department won’t have access to it

She did this so that when she quotes from the book, her quote would be unique and the lecturer would be impressed

When I found out she was doing this, I protested

It was wickedness

She was not going to get the first class by being brilliant, she was also trying to get it by denying others access to the right information

She didn’t even see anything wrong with it

To her, all was fair in love and war

There are leaders like that

Leaders whose only yardstick of success requires that those following them should not prosper in life

They want to always be the one everyone comes to for sustenance

They believe this is how to remain relevant

They want to be the biggest peacock in the room with glowing feathers

As long as they are richer and doing better than their siblings they consider themselves a success

Under the leadership of such, everybody suffers

You will never rise above them

If you have the potential to be a 50 and they are capped at 10, the best you will get to in life is 8

As long as you remain under such a leader

In Nigeria, being a first child attracts some spiritual sentiments that are at best silly

Churches hold special prayers for “firstborn” children and they quote scriptures upside down justifying why the first child ought to be better than other children

They say prayers like “May you not serve your younger ones”

This is a silly prayer because neither the first nor the last child was born to serve any child regardless of his or her position in the family

First-born children are put under undue pressure by ignorant parents and pastors when they create this mindset that makes them think because they came out of the womb first they had to be better than all the other children

This mindset encourages first children to be competitive and envious of their siblings

Sometimes they can go as far as to kill any star that is proving too difficult to dim among their siblings just so that it wouldn’t seem to the world that they are unsuccessful as firstborn children

Christian Churches in Nigeria and those pastored by Nigerians all over the world need to change a lot of things if their teachings and services will truly represent and preach the undiluted gospel of the Lord Jesus

Every one of us who had become “born again” and are full of the Holy Spirit have willingly relinquished our physical position of birth in the flesh and gotten adopted into the lineage of Christ by the Spirit

There can be no “firstborn” in Christ

Jesus himself is the original firstborn and we all are his brethren

This is the gospel if indeed we are all born of the Spirit and not after the flesh

A sister had four younger ones and they were all wallowing in poverty

She was not particularly rich but she was the one doing better than the rest on every front

The other four looked up to her whenever they needed any form of help which never comes

Once in a while when she decides to help, she makes them jump through hoops in a denigrating manner

She was a banana tree in the middle of a marsh

One of her young ones decided to break away from her hold

She didn’t even notice the turn until it was too late

A few years later, the one that broke away had become a huge forest

The banana tree didn’t understand how an insignificant stump became a mighty plantation

It proved that once you can leave her shadow, you will thrive

Others saw this and made their own choices

Those who chose to leave her oppressive leadership thrived

Those who chose to stay under her oppressive leadership withered

It split the family into two factions

Over the years, the faction of the first child withered to nothingness

The faction of the blessed children thrived and captured the remains of the faction of the first child

Leadership affects followers in more ways than one

We all should learn this and save ourselves from the control of manipulative leaders whose sole intention is to subjugate others rather than support them to thrive and flourish

The picture above is a picture of the history of the world we live in

The devil stole the mandate of leadership from Adam and in his time darkness covered the earth and gross darkness the people

He led with a chokehold of pain and demonic influence

The whole of creation began to groan in pain

Then the light came

The glory of the Lord rose over the nations

Jesus was born

Christ was given

The one who called himself a servant leader offered a better leadership style than the dictator who ruled over the world before him

The world was split into two factions

Men and women who still stayed under the oppression of darkness continued to lose out to the tide of change

Men and women who embraced the salvation that Jesus offers and entered into his rest and eternal bliss

These two leadership styles continue to be evident and available all over the realm of men

Those who chose to walk in darkness and are subject to its demeaning reality and those who chose to walk in the light and are now shining brighter than the noonday sun

Which side of the divide are you?