Weathered by the scorching sun of distrust and botched promises. Wearied by loads of unmet expectations. It’s reason people who are closer to us hurt us more than acquaintances. It’s reason why seemingly insignificant issues become the fibers broken relationships and broken marriages are made of. It’s reason people are puzzled when you tell them how it all ended. And they go, ‘you mean that was all that happened?!’

If we’ve been friends for four years, if we’ve been buddy-buddy for six, if we’ve wined and dined for eight years, if we’ve been in each other’s faces for ten, don’t pick offense when I expect certain behaviors from you and don’t shrink if I anticipate your idiosyncrasies. If we’ve been dating for two years, if we’ve been married for ten, don’t recoil when I supposed you would act in some certain ways and don’t feign surprise if I am shocked when you don’t. You trained me so, you played me so, unfortunately unconsciously. Time spent with you wired me like that. Years of listening to you, laughing at your dry jokes, chatting, and playing video games together did that to me.

Ever been in a group where you suddenly feel out of place? Ever been in a relationship where you’ve become so tired? I mean, this was a group you’d been for the most part of your life. This was a buddy that held so much hope. It used to give you that energy to dream, it used to give you that hope and belief that made you get out of bed in the morning and be willing to make the day count. This group had that essence that fired some passion in you. You shared same beliefs, same values, same purpose, same everything. Iron sharpening iron, brother prodding brother up towards greatness and wholeness.

But then things began to happen and trust began to wane. You began to watch how lethargy had set in and monotony became the order of the day. You thought it was a phase and it would pass. But it didn’t. And when you made an attempt to calibrate the settings, it came back to bite you. The group began to diss one another and tear each other apart. This wasn’t what you bargained for, you thought. You didn’t envisage you were going to arrive here. Backbiting. Bitterness. Bad blood. The same values we once held high they began to disrespect. The same messages we preached, push came to shove, and they rubbished it. And the annoying part, they became defensive. We traded years of building trust and friendship for one minute of unbridled madness. And the walls came crashing down. The group no longer could hold. And for a minute, you were stunned, you looked at yourself, and wondered if you farted or if you were putrid, if something was wrong with you because you desperately wanted explanation to how things could flip so quickly. Our meetings became bland and tasteless. The relationship lost its soul. And now we sat in silence but we were screaming obscenities at each other without saying a word.

Have you ever lost your fanaticism to meet with your group again? Have you ever been to your meetings and not feel connected? Same old same old. Plenty talk and no action. Many words and no movement. You could just see the ploy, the manipulations, the hypocrisy, all stared you in the face you wanted to puke.

The higher you climb in the leadership the clearer you see all the inadequacies of people you hold in high esteem. The closer you get to the top the more obvious the flaws of your superior become open to you. The closer you become to another, the more glaring their weaknesses. We all are fallible, after all. Disappointments come from unmet expectations. And distrust is the product of botched promises. It is easier to teach than practice. Only the man who is caught is pronounced a thief. If you’ve never been there don’t tell me about it. Stay on your lane and respect others’ struggles. Because when you open your cake hole to treat a delicate subject and you wax lyrical about it, be sure to walk the talk when occasion demands it.  Otherwise just shut up!

Tests will come. The day you teach me about Forgiveness, that same day, your test is prepared. The day you stand up to speak about Love, that same day, the stage is set, the characters are developed and the settings arranged for your test. The test may not be conducted in a month or two, it may not be conducted in four or five years, but it will definitely hold. You should be scared. It should make you tread cautiously. Because every day, each scene is developed, each act leads to the other and everything leads to that final day. When that test finally shows up, it’s with a bang, it will shake the very foundations of your value systems. It will rock the faculty of your being. It will make you walk through the valley of shadow of death. You would wish you never made commitments. You would wish you never put yourself out there.

But then He says, “I will never, never ever, put on you more than you can bear.”

So when you pass your test, the same power it possesses that is sufficient to break you, that same power will revolutionize your world and place you on a pedestal that would be impossible for your adversaries to deny. (And of course it automatically raises high the expectation bar.) When you pass, you make little effort and you get a bumper harvest. You talk little and the resounding effect will deafen someone a thousand kilometers away. Church folks call it anointing. I’ll like to call it, passing your tests. When you call one, thousands will answer and run before they even hear what the errand is. It’s the reward of passing your test.

But when you fail your test, oh boy, you dent the fiber of friendship and sear the layers of relationships built overtime. You shatter into tiny tiny pieces every block of loyalty and integrity you painstakingly built over the years. The more you fail your test the more you destroy the layers. The permissible layers of absorbing the morals/ teachings. Every failure keeps peeling it away, every gullible break in trust and more layers gets peeled. And a time comes when there’s nothing left. When that time comes and you talk again, you discover your words bounce back at you. And no matter how much energy you expend and no matter how much you sweat in the air-conditioned room, the words still would bounce back at you. And at that moment, it becomes evident, the group would crumble.

Every time you talk or teach you raise the bar of expectations. The level of expectation placed on you is determined by the frequency at which you instruct or teach. Imagine what level you have built if people have been under you for a decade and you have been instructing on a weekly basis. When your tests come they come big. And when you fail the resultant effect is bigger. You may go to God in repentance but people don’t usually forget.

This group has disintegrated.

The agony of what we used to have.

The wretchedness of what used to be.

Can we ever be gathered again?