Dedication – To my lovely friend and a devout pentecostal, Ruth Naa Ayeley Quarcoo.
Most religious folks do not become successful as they wish or as per what their destinies hold. Religious folks? Yes, religious folks are people obsessed with religion or faith and mostly carry it to extremes. These people are found in all earthly faiths or religions, but my emphasis is laid on Christendom, to which I forever belong. Okay, so what is success? Success is quite relative and highly subjective, yet I believe success is simply accomplishing one’s true purpose in life to the full. Now let me explicate why a chunk of religious people fail to emerge really successful.
(1) They have a higher sense of entitlement but a lower sense of responsibility:
In charismatic Christianity especially, adherents believe that they are spiritually entitled to success in life, which is absolutely true according to the Bible. Such people focus their attention on their sacred entitlements. Strangely enough, they have very low or virtually no sense of responsibility towards the success they feel divinely entitled to. They declare that they are already successful in the spiritual realm, but they are not physically motivated to work hard to achieve success.
(2) They confuse reality with spirituality:
My little sister is the most talented female footballer I have ever seen. People who know her can attest to this fact. She has been passionately playing football since age 7 and she is now 15. Unfortunately, my mum has tried to suppress her passion for football just to pursue a science career through high school. Interestingly, my little sister is not punctual and regular in school while she practically does not study; my very religious mum always prays for her to change.
As a maverick, I defiantly told my mum that, “Don’t confuse reality with spirituality. Your daughter will never change, and God won’t do anything about it. Her innate passion is football not science education. If you continue to force her to sacrifice her true passion — football — for mere science; you should always expect her academic performance to get worse, and you’ll be hindering her destined success too. ”
(3) They regard “financial” success as mundane:
As Bible-believing Christians, we ought to set our minds on things above and not on earthly things — Colossians 3:2 says so. However, that does not prevent us from seeking financial success or wealth in a clean and honest manner which glorifies our God. But religious folks misconstrue this delicate principle, so they perceive riches as worldly and bad. Joseph Murphy wrote in ‘The Power of Your Subconscious Mind’ that, “Cleanse your mind of all weird and superstitious beliefs about money. Do not ever regard money as evil or filthy. If you do, you cause it to take wings and fly away from you.”
(4) They are more spiritual and less pragmatic:
I just cannot fathom out why religious folks spend many hours to pray for God to change their untoward situations, but that attitude is actually devoid of pragmatism. For instance, if you pray for God to give you a job as an unemployed youth, but you do not plan and act to create one yourself; then you will always perceive success as a mirage. As the Bible says; faith without works is dead, so is spirituality without pragmatism dead. Religious folks find it difficult to accept and abide by this simple piece of truth. That is why most of them feel that success is many miles away from them.
Number 2 is my most favourite; what about you?
Source: sirarticle.blogspot.com