Two weeks ago, after having discovered to always expect power whenever I pray, a chicken from home went absent without official leave…and the big man of the house doesn’t care what you were doing or where you were when it vanished.
The spirit of verbal slap was about to descend on all of us, like it has many times before when other cocks and hens went missing.
No one was ready to take it. Our gate is somewhat communal, that neighbors use it as a shortcut to wherever they are going. In so doing, some leave it swinging open, and chicken go out a-skipping.
We searched high and low but all in vain. I was getting uncomfortable. It got to 9pm. No one spilled the secret to the big man. No one admitted that the chicken was lost. I was praying in tongues of course. Told the angels to guard it wherever it was and return it by morning.
As I did the dishes, I tried hard to ensure that the buyer of the chicken doesn’t notice one hen missing. Later at about 9, I got out of the gate, and guess what I saw first? The legendary ugly and scrawny bird missing feathers around its neck, scratching the ground for breakfast in a thicket near the fence.
Faith was when no one at home admitted that it was lost! And indeed, it never was. With faith, you have to abandon what your physical eyes see, and create a contrary reality.
Another example to concrete this is my friend Tony. I met Tony in primary five—2006. When we joined high school, Tony wanted to be a doctor.
As statistics had it, we were used to people’s careers changing with time. Growing up, my dad used to line 5 of us every evening whenever he returned from work asking us to tell him what we’d grow up to be. The first said engineer, I said lawyer. I am now an architect.
But, Tony…Tony clung onto this dream since senior one as many confessed during his graduation this Sunday past. I remember being his roommate in A’ level, when he was doing Physics Chemistry & Biology, and things were clearly not in love with him at all. He’d read till late in the night, be up by 3am disturbing our sleep by switching on the light to read.
He was determined. He used to submarine his legs in water in a basin to keep him awake (though that trick failed to work for me…) He had huge alarm clocks that went off at weird hours, but still the subjects never hugged him back!
Often, he used to return to house having flown off the handle. His eyes could be bloodshot, and frantic on anyone in the room. When we followed it up, it was obvious. Tony scored very low grades in the subjects that were essential for medicine.
Marvin who slept above him however, was one of the creme de la cream of the science class. He never used alarm clocks. And he was always scoring As and Bs. Tony slept below him, scoring the opposite. This somewhat exacerbated the condition.
At some point we—Tony’s friends—were like Job’s wife, as if saying ‘why don’t you curse PCB and die’ (figuratively ofcourse)… but Tony maintained his confession. ‘I am a doctor,’ he would elucidate! We would shrug and let him be. With faith, he abandoned what his physical eyes could see.
Even after the UACE results returned, Tony scored 7 out of 20 points. Most of us concluded that his dream was down the drain. But oh boy, Tony was way past the heartbreaks. He went to a private university who’s fees were obviously high for medicine… But to cut the long story short, Tony is now actually DOCTOR Tony. Five years down plus covid allowance, he is all he has ever wanted to be!
He walked by faith & not by sight. He abandoned what his physical eyes could see, and created a contrary reality! And yet he wasn’t one of those you’d consider so spiritual!
This alone feels like Abraham waiting for Isaac for decades. Well, it paid off. Congratulations Tony. Your faith (of over 10 years) pleased God. May your story stir a thousand others, to achieve their dreams, to work in the necessary direction thereof, to maintain their confession, to walk by faith, & to know that some of the voices that told them to give up, shall all return to say ‘you made it, we celebrate you!’
•
2 Corinthians 5:7 For we walk by faith, not by sight.
Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of [our] hope without wavering
Habakkuk 2:4b But the just shall live by his faith.
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith [it is] impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Biggie's Big Blogs 