From childhood, we are told that certain men of God are closer to the Almighty than the rest of us. They claim to have visions, divine encounters, secret messages from heaven, and an intimacy with the Creator that sets them above ordinary mortals. But when I weigh life carefully, when I measure the diversity of human experience and the mystery of God's ways, I find one undeniable truth: no man knows God better than another.
Each person is only walking the path of their faith, shaped by what they have seen, heard, or lived through. One man encounters God in the silence of the desert, another in the chaos of the marketplace. One feels God in the depth of suffering, another in the joy of a new birth. Faith is deeply personal, and no single man's testimony invalidates the other's.
So why then do we allow certain individuals pastors, prophets, bishops, imams, so-called "men of God" to present themselves as the gatekeepers of heaven? If truly God is infinite, how can the finite knowledge of one man be enough to define Him? If God's thoughts are higher than ours, then even the greatest preacher is still stumbling in the dark, holding only a fragment of light.
I have watched congregations bow, sometimes trembling, before a man in a shiny suit who calls himself "God's general." They believe his words more than their own conscience. They follow his interpretation more than the voice within them. They hand him their money, their time, their devotion, because they think he sees God more clearly than they do. But I ask: who gave him that privilege? Did God? Or did we, out of ignorance and fear?
The truth is bitter: dedication, not superiority, separates men. One man fasts more than another, another prays longer, another studies deeper. But dedication is not divine preference. It does not make one man "closer" to God in essence; it only reflects how much effort he has put into seeking. A man who trains his body more will be stronger, but that does not make him more human than another. So too with God: a man may train his spirit more, but he is not more a child of God than his neighbor.
If there is any closeness to God at all, it comes from sincerity of heart, not the title of Pastor, Prophet, or Bishop. The beggar who whispers a prayer in hunger may be heard as loudly as the preacher who shouts on the pulpit. The mother who weeps quietly over her child may touch heaven more deeply than the man with microphones and millions of followers.
But religion, as always, thrives on hierarchy. It convinces us that there are levels of access, that someone else must intercede on our behalf, that God is too far to be reached directly. This is the biggest scam of organized faith. Jesus himself said, "The kingdom of God is within you." If that is true, then who dares to claim monopoly of His presence?
I have come to see that every man is simply interpreting God through the lens of his life. The African may see God as the great ancestor, the Westerner as a father, the Easterner as a spirit of balance. Each interpretation is colored by culture, environment, and history. None is fully correct, and none is fully false. We are all children drawing crude pictures of a sun too bright to look at directly.
So when a pastor tells me he is closer to God, I smile. For I know his "closeness" is simply his confidence, his devotion, his practice. Nothing more. God does not choose favorites based on position or title. He listens to the heart, and hearts are everywhere in palaces and in prisons, in pulpits and in gutters.
If only more people would grasp this truth, slavery to men would end. We would stop worshipping pastors and start worshipping God. We would stop paying for miracles and start building faith from within. We would stop competing over who "knows God more," and instead walk humbly with the little light each of us has.
For in the end, when death strips titles away and eternity unfolds, every man will stand naked before God. And in that moment, it will not matter who preached to millions or who prayed in secret. What will matter is sincerity, honesty, and the life each one lived.
No man knows God better than another. We are all seekers. We are all students. We are all travelers groping towards a light too great to fully comprehend. And perhaps that is the beauty of it that God remains a mystery, so that no man can boast of owning Him.