Glory doesn’t belong to you!

If you had 1 Ton of glory, what would you do with it? Of what value is glory to you? The historians say that those who do not know history are bound to repeat it. Many men have died either in pursuit of glory, or in laying claim to it as it came forth from men. It is not only a maxim, but indeed proven in time, that pride comes before a fall! What you are about to hear will likely shock you, even I was scared, but please, put on your seat belts!

Yesterday (it’s after 12 midnight already) morning, a bizzare occurence took place in my home. I woke up at 5am in the morning, went out of my room, to ensure that my sister (wife’s sister) was getting ready for her early morning flight. As soon as I confirmed I went back to sleep, with the intention of sleeping for one hour before waking up again to call everyone at home for our normal morning devotion. On going back to sleep, I had two dreams! One was a dream in a dream, I woke up from a dream into another dream, before I finally woke up to reality. In my first dream, I saw myself in a gathering of familiar people, I could see one face in particular of a friend in the US. In this dream I spoke with my characteristic gesticulations and confidence. All of a sudden, I saw maggots gushing out of my arms. Everything appeared very real, so real, I could see some of the maggots on the back side of my arm trying hard to make their way to the front. It was strange however that the audience of familiar faces didn’t seem to notice. I had to announce to them that I believed I needed to do a medical check up as I couldn’t understand how I was feeling. I kept chatting with a friend about how I was feeling until I suddenly woke up. You can’t imaging how happy I was that it was a dream, unknown to me at this time, I had woken up just into another dream.

In this dream I sat and analysed the meaning of the first dream. The analysis seemed crystal clear. God was warning me about taking pride in the works of my hand. It was a clear statement, never to say -“By my hands, I built this”, but to learn to return the glory to God, and to remain humble enough to be a blessing to those who cannot afford my time. In this dream, I called a friend who also happened to be around in the house, and as soon as I finished narating my dream he gave me a picture of a place I had been invited to speak in, and told me to go there as I might have felt I was too big for the meeting. I asked him if he really thought the dream was about pride and he affirmed. As soon as he affirmed, I woke up into reality.

As soon as I woke up, I got up and called the 4 people who were in my house at this time together for morning devotion. When we finished I narrated my dream to the two friends present (my wife travelled, so she wasn’t around). To my utter amazement, one of my friends (with daze in his eyes) narrated the dream he had at about the same time. He woke up by 5am as well, and went back to sleep despite having other plans. In his dream, he was in a gathering where I suddenly burst in, walking, flexing and talking like I was on top of the world. After a while I removed my shirt, as if to say “Where are they? (Whey Dem?), after a while as I continued oozing with pride, I removed my trousers, as if to say “I dont’ send”. All this while he watched me in shock wondering…why is Adeolu talking like this. I left after this into a room where he quickly came to meet me, to talk to me perhaps I would listen and cool down. When he entered the room I was in, he said he saw me fully dressed sitting, thinking and looking sober, obviously having come to myself and known that how I had spoken and potrayed myself was wrong. He was going to begin to converse with me, when he heard my knock inviting him for devotion. I was perplexed!

The message was 3 times clearer. There will be reasons, opportunities and occassions to act out of pride ahead. There will be times when people will praise and I’ll be tempted not to pass the glory to whom it belongs to . There will be days when if I am not concious I would attribute more than I deserve to me. In order for me not to loose my head in those days has this warning come. Pride comes before a fall! God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble. The Lord rules and reigns in the affairs of men, and gives it to whom he wills. Glory belongs to neither me nor you, give it up! Pride begins with getting puffed up, loosing regard of higher authorities, laying claim to glory and assuming control.

What do you have that you were not given? I am conciously making up my mind to gravitate away from pride, and use every opportunity to give the glory back. What about you?