Many years ago, in my early days in the city of Kazan, Russia, when studying on scholarship in the university and at the same time playing semiprofessional football in my city, I learned a big lesson about the link between frustration, bitterness and criticism.
Rubin Kazan was the top professional football club of our city and was one of the top football clubs in Russia during that period. They had been champions of the Russian football league for two consecutive years. In their UEFA champions league group, they were drawn with Barcelona, Inter Milan, and Dinamo Kiev. Our whole city was full of buzz and excitement at the prospect of such great football teams coming to play in our city stadium. Imagine the prospect of watching Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimović, and many great footballers live in your city. Tickets were sold out weeks before the games.
I was playing for a team in a lower semi-professional league in our city. I remember excitedly telling some of my Russian teammates in our lower level team how excited I was about watching the upcoming games in our city. Rubin Kazan had shocked the whole of Europe by beating Barcelona football club 2-1 in the Camp Nou (Barcelona’s home stadium) and everybody was looking forward to the return leg in my city. I was singing the praises of the players of Rubin Kazan for such an unprecedented feat when I got the shock of my life.
Some of my teammates were criticizing the players of Rubin Kazan, looking for flimsy excuses to downgrade their achievements. I could not believe my ears. One of them told me that even if tickets were given to him for free, he was not going to the stadium to watch those games. To say I was shocked will be an understatement. I could not understand how somebody who played football semi professionally will pass up a once in a lifetime opportunity of watching such great games, not on TV but live. This teammate of mine was criticizing almost every single player in the Rubin Kazan team. It was when I dug deeper that I began to understand what was happening.
Almost half of my teammates passed through the Rubin Kazan academy, that is the junior and youth teams. Every professional football team has an academy for the youth and young footballers are trained at the various levels, Under-10, under-13, under-17 and up to the senior team. Those who become full professionals at the senior level are those who passed through all these levels and reached the very top. Many do not make the cut for various reasons. Lack of talent, indiscipline, injury, and lack of focus are some of the reasons why some do not make the cut and may be dropped at certain levels. Some are dropped early while some almost reach the very top.
I discovered that these overly critical teammates of mine were full of resentment for some Rubin Kazan players because they personally knew some of them and could also have been at that level. Some of my teammates were those that did not make the cut to the next level for one reason or the other and were just playing semiprofessional football to keep fit. All their lives they had played football and hoped to become professionals but for one reason or the other they did not make the cut. Their criticism was a sign of deep frustration. While a neutral like me was full of admiration for the Rubin Kazan players, some of those who knew them personally and started with them were full of envy and bitterness and were looking for any and every reason to criticize them. Years later while meditating on some issues concerning ministry, the Holy spirit gave me this parallel.
You see, it is one thing for an unbeliever to be criticizing great men of faith and exploits. There is nothing shocking in that. They are doing the work of their father the devil. But it is a completely different thing sometimes when so called ministers take up the mantle of criticism, looking for any and every opportunity to criticize influential ministries. I know of a former very influential minister of Nigerian origin who unfortunately lost his ministry and has taken up a new role, criticizing most Nigerian ministers of repute as his new ministry.
I am in no way saying that those with influential ministries are perfect. No, not at all, but the truth is that God is the caller and promotion comes from Him alone. Do not be deceived, when it comes to the Kingdom of God, “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.” (John 3:27). God alone is the judge.
Beware of people who criticize other ministers, giving you old stories about how they knew them years ago and started together with them, trying to use old tales to validate their criticism. In most cases it is coming from a bitterness that has taken root on the inside of them. Do not become gullible and allow such people to corrupt your heart.
It takes a great deal of spiritual maturity to see someone you started with in any area of life having massive impact and yet you are able appreciate the hand of God over their life. Never succumb to the temptation of nit-picking and looking for faults in the lives of such people. It is a sign that you are becoming bitter. If there is something seriously wrong with a ministry in your opinion, do not worry. God is the referee, He has the whistle in His mouth, and He knows when to blow it. He alone promotes and He alone demotes.
I hope you were blessed. Please let us be doers of the word and not just hearers.
Pastor Godwin Ikwuchegbani, founder and senior pastor of Mount Zion churches, Russia. You can follow us through this link.
https://www.facebook.com/PastorGodwin.Russia/
