Some years ago, I went to have an interview with a pastor in Ibadan. I met him having a deliverance session for a woman. After finishing, leaving the woman on the floor, he came to attend to me and narrated what happened to the woman.
“This woman was posing like a beggar around the streets and people would give. One day, I was in a traffic jam when she came to me. I lowered my side glass to give her money when the Holy Spirit stopped me, revealing who she was. I quickly parked my vehicle and walked to her. Immediately she sighted me, she ran and I ran after her, holding her. She has been here for three days.
“She confessed that she was not just begging for alms but destroying destinies. How? Any giver whose hand touches her hand in the process of giving, that hand will never prosper again. She confessed that scores of people have fallen into her net. She is a witch…” The pastor said.
Now, stories like this don’t really hit me. I don’t really think much of them until I came into a deeper understanding of the workings of the devil and the power of Christ. Since that day, if I would give beggars anything on the street, I try not to allow their hands’ to touch mine. Also, I am careful about giving because you don’t just know. But if you judge all men with that woman’s standard, shall we ever be kind to the poor and beggars?
Yesterday evening, as I was driving in and parking, a young boy, like eight years old, accosted me and, pointing to her mama standing by the gate, said ‘sir, please help us with something so we can eat tonight.’ I was shocked. Where is this boy from? I looked towards the gate and saw the mother with a baby on her back and a girl, older than the boy trailing her. Immediately our eyes met, she knelt, asking me to help them.
The first thought that hit me was the Ibadan narrative. I wanted to decline but I heard a soft voice within me: ‘Give them. God will protect you. If you do good, stop thinking the evil of men will overtake you’. Immediately, I felt a kind of peace within me to give. And I brought out my purse, gave them what I thought could feed them for two days. Me too get my own bukata fa!
The message of this narrative is that we should always pray for the spirit of discernment. Must we help only people we know? The evil in our society is capable of stopping us from assisting those we don’t know. However, we should all know that giving is perfectly done when we do it for people who are incapable of paying us back.
It is well. May God bless every giving hand.
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