I have often heard preachers on radio calling on people to their churches or ministries to come to their churches for deliverance from a spiritual malady called near success syndrome. The near success syndrome is a postulation which believes that there are people who come to the point of their breakthrough and suddenly crash out. I have painted a picture of it thus: You get to the public square to fetch water, during the period of water scarcity. You join the long queue of people who have come to also fetch, by the time you get to the tap and place your bucket the tap gradually stops running, suddenly to your dismay, you are told that the water in the tank has finished or the borehole is damaged. The next day you also drive your car to the petrol station, you join the long queue once again and it is the period of acute fuel scarcity. You drove your car with the last liter of fuel to get to the station. You also hope to get fuel and go to the park and get some passengers into your taxi, so as to make some money for the family. After the long struggle and battle to buy fuel, when it was finally your turn to buy fuel, the fuel attendant announces that they have run out of fuel.
Near success syndrome therefore can be defined as coming to the point where you are almost sure of success only to meet failure and disappointment at the end. Some people regularly experience this in all their endeavors and they keep wondering why nothing they lay their hands upon works.
Let me state at this juncture, that I believe that certain ills that come to us could be spiritually induced. The Bible also speaks to us about putting the whole armour of God so that we might be able to withstand the evil days. In as much as demons and bad people could try to stop a man spiritually and diabolically, we must be careful so as not to heap every failure on these forces.
In this age of “Americanized” and radicalized Christianity, we tend to heap almost every blame of failure on the devil and his agents. Somebody hit his car against an electric pole and exclaimed “The pole was moving towards me that it was difficult to dodge the pole” Another driver who was always hitting wild animals with his car was asked why he never slowed down at sighting the wild animals’ crossing caution, responded, “Tell the road safety guys to remove the sign from the road so that the wild animals will no longer cross from this point.” Some people tend to blame everything on spiritual forces even when it is clear that all we need to do is just an adjustment in attitude.
There is also this story of a man who was driving to work, on the way his car nearly hit a boy trying to cross the road, he yelled and cursed at the boy. Ten minutes later, he nearly had a head on collision with an elderly man riding a bicycle; he stopped his car and dressed the old man down with harsh words. Just as he was about to park his car and get out, he finally hit a woman carrying fruits and vegetables in a wheel-barrow, then he exclaimed, “I don’t know what is wrong with everybody today!” We live in a world of blame culture and no wonder Adam blamed his disobedience on Eve and Eve finally blamed the devil. None of them was willing to say “I am responsible for my failure.”
It is funny to hear that a house not meant to carry more than two stories collapsed after more stories were added to it and all the owner of the house could say was that an aircraft hovered over the house several time and it collapsed. This explanation is just like a child who claimed that he stole the meat because the meat ran out of the soup pot into his mouth! When an armed robber is caught, he blames it on the devil; it is hard to find people who blame themselves. This might be also why we do not acknowledge defeat in elections. If we do not win, then the election was rigged.
I heard a pastor say that he conducted deliverance on a lady who claimed that twenty-five suitors have come to her and all of them never came back after the introductory rights. The pastor went ahead to say that such frustration was the handiwork of ancestral curses. I have also had to counsel a lady who claimed that men have been asking for her hand in marriage but they never show seriousness after making the first move. After much interview, I discovered that the lady had been hiding her family history and making up stories about her parents. When these suitors discovered on their own her family background they quit the relationship. Her problem was not a demonic one as she initially thought, but a simple demand for her to change her attitude by telling the truth about herself. When she eventually started telling the truth about her family history, she got married to a man who did not care about such histories. The Bible say that you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
Therefore, this so called near success syndrome which some “radicalized” preachers diagnose as a spiritual/demonic malady might be a marketing strategy to attract the indolent who lack innovative, proactive and strategic thinking. When you fail and quit, you are a failure. When you fail and refuse to give up, you are on the path to success.
When you fail repeatedly and continue resolutely but without changing your course or style and not looking back, you become a permanent/ recurrent failure.
There is this saying in Igbo, “omemara Chi ekwegh, ony uta atana ya.” –He that tries and is opposed by God should not be blamed. But the question I have always asked is what were you doing that your God refused to grant you success? Should you not have thought of doing something else that will attract his approval? Should you not have changed tactics? Should you not have done a self examination to actually find out if you are operating on the right principles? Working hard is the only option to success. The second option is still work hard! Nevertheless, working hard is not enough, you have to work smart, you have to work innovatively.
