There are many truths.

Leitura: 7 min

One of them is about the moment when you, in church, feel a hand on your shoulder and the

brother, or preacher, speaking to you in front of the congregation:

“God has a plan for you!”

When you are called up to the front, at the time of a prayer, that consecrates and dedicates the lives of the brothers and sisters, and when you go, walk down the aisle to the front, and feel a hand on your shoulder. And you hear that God has not given up on you. And you hear that He is going to do something great in your life. That He is hearing your prayer at dawn, and seeing your suffering. He’s hearing your cry, seeing your refrigerator empty, you unemployed, but still, He’s going to do something great in your life.

And the whole congregation there, in the same communion, listening. And the brethren raise their hands and pray for you, and ask God to bless you.

My friend,

there are many truths in this question about evangelicals.

The woke leftist, in order to dispute power with the pastor, and prevent the advance of conservative agendas ends up hitting this brother, this sister, who goes to church on a Thursday night, in hoods of Baixada Fluminense, in the far south of São Paulo, in the outskirts of Vila Sarapuí, or in at the ghettos of Cidade Ademar.

The truth of this person.

That is a person where your Marx does not reach. Where your neutral gender does not reach. They understand the world through the perspective of the Bible. The Bible, the book that explains the past, the present, and the future. A book above any other. You may hate it, but that is how it is, for millions of people, in Brazil, and in the world.

You criticize this person as if he/she were the source of all the evil that millionaire pastors, such as Malafaia causes you, but don’t forget that those evil preachers, wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing also, oppress this the meager hoard. You criticize the believer because he gives 10% of his money to the church, but you don’t say anything about the 250 bucks that you leave to the psychoanalyst every week.

Friend, my friend.

There are MANY truths in this business here. You stick with yours.

I remember that this moment happened to me when I was 11 years old. I went with my mom to a gallery in Madureira, a gospel records and Bible store, and my mom went to buy refrigerator stickers with biblical verses, to sell at the local congregation after the service. My mom used to sell everything, from jeans to flower arrangements, so I was in this store, listening to the songs and hymns of that time on the record player, the clerk told my mom to call me.

“Anderson, come here, my son”

The man, I’ll never forget this, looked at me over his glasses and said, pointing at me

“Young man, the Lord has given me a message that I need to give you”

I remember I looked at him, and at that moment time stopped. What do you mean, God sent me a message? But, man, does God really exist? And not satisfied with his existence, He still knows that I exist and gives me a message?

The man said:

“God has a project for you, that in your life you will reach many, many people. You will stand in front of many people, and talk to them. Put your life before the Lord. Receive this word”

I remember that rarely in my life have I cried so much. I was still a child. Note: as random as this may seem, as much as it is a process that can be explained by psychology, the prophecy-expectation-standard relationship and everything is you who makes it happen, the single fact is that this man was the FIRST person who made me believe in myself.

Do you understand the power of this?

I could say that what he said was true.

Just look at you, from all over the world, reading me.

Whether you are anonymous, whether you are a teacher, whether you are unemployed, whether you are an artist, whether you are a politician, look at you, reading this text on the other side of the screen. I AM in front of many people, speaking. And this was said 35 years ago.

It may be that, because it was said to me, I then wished it. And there is only desire. I don’t know, maybe Psychoanalysis is the revelation?

But in how many people out there is a desire, a goal, a dream, or a mission, and they don’t get it?

Do you understand?

I succeeded. I don’t know how I did it, because I fucked up so bad because my life went so fucking wrong. But in the end, I came to a place that this man said I was going to be in, almost four decades ago.

One thing is for sure, it was, and was not, something I did. There were factors. You have that thing called talent. You say ‘I can write.’ I was a terrible student of Portuguese. I failed many so times, my grades were mediocre. I barely know any grammar, I don’t know shit. I speak fucking slang, my dictionary is Bezerra da Silva and a rapper named Racionais. Other, more talented people were supposed to be here, on this page. In this place.

But it wasn’t like this.

There is something I want to explain to you.

The church is often the first institution that believes in you. It is there that you understand that you are seen. That you are noticed. Whether by the brethren or by someone as important as the God who created the world, He created the world, but He is looking at you now and there is something He told me to tell you. Wow.

Do you understand this?

The Sense of belonging.

To be generous, to perceive the other, to desire the social advancement of the other, to declare that advancement. To make you believe in yourself.

You may not need this. You, the residents of fancy postal codes, Vila Mariana, Botafogo. With a

middle-class life, with father, mother, who are both employed., You have food for tomorrow. You have university fees paid on time, you have privileges. You don’t need that (God).

But we down here are all fucked up. Where we come from, these people are all broken inside.

Unfinished relationships, a father died, or beat everyone and left. Or he was arrested. We grow up without the figure of a man to prepare us for this war. We feel the prejudice, the fear, the pain, the racism, the poverty. We don’t have Nike, we don’t have an iPhone, we don’t have money, we don’t have a night out, we don’t have peace, we don’t have a future, college, paid bills, nothing, a job, nothing.

IT IS IN THIS CONTEXT that you come to the service,

when nobody sees you,

when society makes you invisible,

when you are scrubbing floors at the mall and nobody notices you,

when you flip burgers at McDonald’s and they ignore you,

when you are an Uber eats courier and they close the door in your face,

when you have hustled for a decent job,

when you have tried to find meaning, purpose, an answer

and NO ONE

nobody acknowledges your worth.

Then it comes along, like, God,

and God says: “I have a plan in your life. I see you. I see your pain. I see that you have importance behind that broom and that bucket. I see that you have value standing on this crowded train. I have a plan for you”

“See what I will do”.

Oh, my friend. When you are invisible, and you hear this, you find meaning and direction.

Malcolm X did exactly the same in the streets of Harlem, and he took it to the Nation of Islam. Malcolm saw the invisible.

So, if the woke leftists can’t see the invisible, someone else can.

If the Left-wing can’t take Marx and tell people that they have value, there is a purpose in the workers’ struggle, that one day we will beat the system, that this inequality will end, the church comes in and says exactly that.

If the State doesn’t come in and tell this person that he or she can have access to work, education, food, tranquillity, and that flag means a country, with a place for all, then the church will come in, with the flag of Israel and a bunch of other stuff. Saying that a person in this predicament can count on a God brought the people out of Egypt with miracles.

Before you make such an idiotic and shallow judgment about what happens in places you haven’t ever set a foot on, understand that the church is often doing what others movements and agendas could have done.

Don’t condemn the truths of these people.

Understand that everything is too complex to judge those who can’t afford to shop at Whole Foods.