Gains Of Un-employment
He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. 1Cor 1:4-5
I pray to God to use the following testimony to give encouragement to those who may need it. Some of the occurrences recounted in this piece may not have happened in countries with developed economies but they did happen and are still happening in Nigeria and most countries in Africa.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
My career path has been badly damaged. The eventual seven year unemployment I shall talk about later came as a necessary landslide caused by thirteen years of unchecked erosion of my career path. I bagged a B.Eng in Civil Engineering in 1987 at 24years and those were the difficult days of military dictatorship in Nigeria when the Federal Government had to introduce the Structural Adjustment Programme with its attendant consequences, embargo on employment being one of the punishments on the masses. My immediate plan was to get a good employment, put in six years of service and saved every dime of it for investments in blue chip companies. Then I planned to resign and start writing and travelling. I would live on my royalties as a writer and I’d take care of my dependants and the needy with dividends from my investments. But something was wrong with the plan. It was my own plan. I sidelined God and God loved me so much that he never allowed my plan to work out that way. After three years of job hunting, a relation offered to give me employment in his Computer business if I would learn to write computer programmes. I accepted with happiness and gratitude and for four years I worked (or slaved?) and learned my first sets of lessons on the streets. The business was growing but the workers were not allowed to grow. I and some other colleagues had to leave and in my own case, with salary arrears of over thirteen months cumulative and many months of unpaid allowances. This is the end of first 7 years post-graduation experience.
Then some friends and I started a business venture. We soon began to have partnership problems which put the collective dream in serious jeopardy. While we were grappling with this teething problem, Nigeria erupted again in the 1994 June 12 riot. Many people died. We made it but our business never survived it. We packed up two years later with debts and hard feelings. That ended 9 years post-graduation.
I left for the North only to join another sole-proprietorship company (we call it one-man-business) where I served for four years with the same fate as the first. There were no standards and no staff welfare policies. Everything happened at the whims of the CEO. I left poorer than I joined. I again tried my hands on another business venture. Since I had no capital of my own and banks were no-go-areas with their stiff interest rates and impossible collaterals, I teamed up again with people. This association collapsed again because we were not like minded. All these while, I had no opportunity to get a field experience in my area of specialization and so the certificate lost its immediate relevance. No serious employer would touch it. With the cash crunch and unsettled mind, I was not able to get any certification examinations done to substantiate my computer skills but I acquired the relevant experience. Again, no serious employer would touch me. The last business failed three months to my wedding in 2001, and then it was 14 years post-graduation and it also marked the starting of another seven year trouble, the one I called a landslide because I had nothing doing at all. Many factors like these, added to my own character flaws, carelessness, fear of uncertainty and inability to plan well killed my career growth. But even at that, when the seventy years of captivity were ended, God still called the dry bones of my career forth, and they rattled as bones joined to bones, ligaments, sinews and flesh were added and breath entered the nostrils. (Ezek 37: 1-14)Today, I am employed again to the glory of God.
TESTIMONY
Although I did not value It much that time, but now I see it as a wonderful blessing to be so close to my family for all of 7 years after my marriage. I had no work to go to. Apart from the short trips to job interview venues, We practically were together all of the time, laughing together, crying together and planning together. I saw everyday of the nine months pregnancy. I was by her side during the over 48 hours protracted labour. Doctors have pronounced the baby dead but God called him forth. I helped nurse Tayo from day 1. I have had to give the baby the morning bath, make the food and also carry him on my back on many occasions when Susan had to go to work in the morning. We could not afford a house help and my son would never sleep on his bed in the early mornings. So I had to carry him on my back if I wanted peace. This quickly cured me of the male-chauvinistic ego I grew up with. I began to see women in a new light and I had no problems honouring them and helping them. Helping my wife with the house chores became a delight rather than a bore. In today’s fast-paced world, parents and spouses have had to develop a timetable to have quality time with the family. Fathers get out of the house before the kids wake up and are not back before the kids sleep. The nannies have become surrogate parents for the children. How poorly we treat these gifts of the Almighty! Ps 127:3
Looking back to these seven years, I now have the confidence to say of a truth that a man’s life does not depend on the size of his wardrobe, the fatness of his purse and the largeness of his appetite. All these things are needed in very moderate measures and the Lord faithfully supplies them. Godliness with contentment has great gain. We were very poor and could not afford many things. But the Lord provided us food, clothings and shelter. He blessed us with good health. We learned to plan with God’s means and abilities rather than within our own means. For if we had to do the latter then we would not even eat or pay rent for our means could not even fully cater for those. I had the rare priviledge of seeing the vanity of wealth without the wisdom of God to use it. I observed many rich couples who were still unable to rest and enjoy the fruit of their labours because they were preoccupied troubles of sustaining their status and wealth with more anxious toil. They slept and dine in their palatial homes with troubles and the same way, even more peacefully, we slept and ate in our own humble abode.
I was able to appreciate the value of my close relations and friends as they ministered to my needs as much as God gave them grace to. Sure, these people will be reminded one day when Christ would say to them that he was hungry and they gave him food, naked and they gave him clothes. And they would be surprised, they would ask, “Lord, when did we do that”? And Christ would say when you did it for my son Adelani, you did it for me, welcome to the joy of your God. Many people surely deserted us but God kept his own people near us. During this period, I was taught to receive gifts with humility and appreciation rather than trying to earn what is supposed to be a gift. Now this is the problem of some of us. We ruin the joy of giving for others when we try to do or say something to present us as though we deserve the gift being offered to us. At some other times we might approach a benefactor with the air of “I’d also do you a good turn in the future’ as if the giver is giving us because we have the ability to pay back. It is wrong and we unconsciously do this to God also when we think he is blessing us because we are good and spiritual. We are saved by grace, not works.
I learnt to not cast my hope on human beings no matter how highly placed they are or how religious they appear. God is the only one who makes promises and fulfill them. If a human being makes a promise and is able to fulfill it, it is God who made it possible. There are too many variables beyond the sight and comprehension of mortal man, even the best of us all. But God is sovereign. Nothing can stop him from fulfilling his promises. He is omniscient and he is eternal. Man knows only the present moment and he knows it partially. So unseen forces could make him back out from his plans. Many people deserted us at these hours of need, and worse, some others mocked. But as much as we experienced betrayals God’s love was never waning in the people he also sent to stand by us and share his love.
There is a lot of wisdom in moving very close to the lowly brethren. In their humility is genuine fellowship and strong faith. Unemployment was a tool that helped me learn this. The rich love to move in their own circle but they hardly have a good fellowship since the chord that joins them together is the sowcasing of their acquisitions and attainments. However, this chord is so weak that it is easily severed by envy and pride. Eccl 4:4 Now this is not a general rule, I have also come across rich brethren whose faiths are unaffected by mammon. The poor have no such worries but they spend most of the time encouraging one another and praying together. The end result is that they grow stronger in faith and love. It surprised me that it was the poor who shared more with us than the rich.
Because of the desire to see the end of this problem quickly, I devoted more time to seek the face of God in prayers and study of the word. I was always cocking my ears to catch the slightest whisper from God in prayers, studying, meditation and when simply lying still. I was just very eager to hear God say something about what I was going through. And he did say an earful to me in those days. I began to know the value of solitude. God’s voice is not heard when we are deep in the hustle bustle of life but when we get to a solitary place with listening ear, he speaks.
It is not as if it was all smooth for our marriage because we are believers. Suzan and I went through a lot of temptations. At a time she was advised to pack up and go back to her mother. Somebody even told her that she married a man that has been cursed and never could make it again. Many men approached her with the promise of making her life better if she could back out of her marriage vows. On my part, I had the chance of making money through many short cuts. I was tempted to join money making cults many times. My background as an herbalist’s son gave me all the knowledge I needed. I knew where to get it done but I also knew the dangers. God saw me through the choices. I was also tempted to get myself a sugar-mummy. At Abuja where we live, there were these very rich society ladies who were always hunting for young men who would be their secret lovers. Some of them have gotten themselves trapped as the third or fourth wives of rich businessmen who don’t have too much time to attend to their sensual needs. Again, the crime world is always burgeoning. God ‘s love kept me distant from all these as he did not incline my heart to do evil. In the midst of these tough times, Suzan and I had to sit down together one day after a big quarrel and we decided that we were going to stick together and obey all our marriage vows. We agreed to tell each other whatever the devil says. And we say “whatever you hear about me, check it out with me first. Whatever you think I have done, run it by me first. Don’t form opinions until we’ve talked”
In the church, to the glory of God, many other brethren took courage as they watched me work in the church as though I was ready to die. God gave me the strength to apply his grace in almost every duty in the church. I taught in the bible class, sang with the choir, prayed with the prayer warriors, taught in the mid week service, participated in organizing revivals, worked with the local chapter of the Bible society and the Christian Association of Nigeria, went on evangelism and visitations. Not that I was good in all these services, but I had the grace of being in the midst of brethren who gave me free hand. They did not hinder me. They did not say, “sorry brother, there is no vacancy in this agency”. Whenever I volunteered, they gave me all the support to perform. I felt relieved from my pains and idleness as I got myself very busy with these services and I believed the brethren also realized how much I needed to serve in this way. The more I served in prayers and ministration of the word, the more I saw my nakedness in the light of Jesus. I saw how deep wickedness was embossed in my heart – the heart of man.(Gen6:5) Then I began to realize how much Jesus loves me. I stopped thinking of how much I love Jesus and am committed to him. My works amounted to trash. I began to thank him for how much he loves me and is committed to me
What happened to me was very painful but God used the pains to teach me valuable lessons even as he supported me through and through. He did not allow more than I could handle with the measure of grace he gave me. Not that I can really finish this testimony in a piece like this but I just have to round up this one now by saying that I also have the privilege of seeing dead bones rise again in my life. I witnessed Lazarus called out of the grave when God helped me to get a job. Who are you to lose hope? What is it that you are going through? Do not look at your feeble strength; do not concentrate on your weakness. Abraham did not look at his age and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. Are you listening to what the taunting enemy is telling you? Thank God in yourweakness rather, for in it God’s power is made perfect. How tall is the giant confronting you? How mighty is the mountain on your path? Compare your giant, or mountain with the size of a God whose footstool is the whole earth. Need I say more?
