Jesus told Nicodemus: "Unless a man is born again, he will not see the kingdom of God " (John 3:3).
Nicodemus was confused:
Born again? How?
He asked, "How can a man be born when he is old?" (John 3:4).
He didn't understand so he ASKED for clarification.
That's very commendable!

Later in chapter 6, Jesus was discussing with some guys.
He said, "I am the Bread of Life: he that comes to me shall never hunger; and he that believes on me shall never thirst" (John 6:35).
They were as confused as Nicodemus!
But what did they do?
Ask for CLARIFICATION?
Oh, no!

"The Jews then murmured at him..."
(verse 41).
Jesus then asked, "Why are you guys murmuring?" (verse 43)
Question: does murmuring solve any problems?
No!
But as human beings (particularly as Nigerians), we just LOVE to murmur!
It's like we ENJOY it- especially on social media.

Jesus rubbed it in a bit further:
"I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever: and the Bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (verse 51).
More confusion!
See the reaction:

"The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" (verse 52).
They started quarrelling with each other!

Rather than ask Jesus to explain what he meant (he was apparently speaking in parables), they started quarrelling!
Why?

Jesus was not done:
"Truly I say unto you, Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man & drink his Blood, you have no life in you.
For my Flesh is meat indeed & my Blood is drink indeed!"
(verses 53 & 55).
Hard words!
These guys couldn't take it again!
What did they do...?

"From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him" (verse 66).
They decided that Jesus wasn't worth following anymore.
They DECIDED He was talking nonsense.
Now, on what did they base their DECISIONS?
ON THE LEVEL OF THEIR UNDERSTANDING!

And their understanding was based on mind conditioning, manipulation, control, internal wiring, exposure, culture, norms, comprehension skills, processing ability, etc.
Same way we react to issues in Nigeria- especially on this app.
When we see a tweet, we process it as we can...

We DECIDE what we THINK the person meant (based on our conditioning)- & we react!
What we don't understand, we either condemn as nonsense, or we mystify it.

@GospelJosiah posted something a while back: a teacher gave a boy 3 apples & asked, how many apples do you have?

The boy said 4.
The teacher thought the boy didn't get it. She gave him 3 oranges & asked how many.
He said 3.
Teacher changed the fruits to apples again & asked, "how many apples do you have?"
Boy said 4!
The teacher was exasperated!
But guess what?
The boy has an apple already!

If the teacher had ASKED (as Nicodemus asked Jesus), the boy would have told her, "I have an apple in my bag already, ma'am. If you give me 3 more, that makes it 4!"

I think if we understand this & if we learn to ask questions more, there'll be less beef, fighting, insults etc.

If we understand that we're all different, we see things differently, we process things differently, we were wired differently, our minds were conditioned differently, our backgrounds are different, our level of exposure is different, our capacities are different...

We'll be more tolerant of each other.
The general opinion on this platform is, "if you don't think like I do, if you don't see things MY way, there MUST be something wrong with YOU!" & we react accordingly- most times with insults.
We never imagine we're the ones with issues...

A friend's dad he had not seen for 30 years decided to come visit him from Germany.
He came with his 15 year old son.
As they sat down for dinner (my friend, his wife, his dad & his half-brother) power was cut!
The boy screamed out in German, the father responded in German...

& laughed.
My friend went to switch on the generator & the light came back on.
The boy couldn't comprehend what was going on (like Nicodemus). He asked questions.
The dad explained to him (in German) what happened & the noise from the generator.
He asked to see the generator!

The dad told my friend, "your brother says he wants to see your generator. He's never seen one before."
My friend said, "Seriously? Your son must be bush!"
His dad replied, "Actually, you're the bush one, generator expert!"

My friend used his reality to judge his brother.

My point is, most times our reality is all we know. When other people make submissions based on their own realities, we quarrel, beef, we fight, we react negatively just because we don't know more than we know.
To us, our reality is THE standard.

But many times, we're wrong.

If we agree we have been wrong before, we must know that we can be wrong again.
You don't know it all.
You're NOT infallible.
Your opinion could be wrong, & even if it is right, your opinion is NOT a constitution for others to follow.

Let's be more tolerant, please!