MY COSTAIN EXPERIENCE

 

MY COSTAIN EXPERIENCE 

  Written By Chidebere Etuma Michael 

  A Creative Content Writer

Sometimes God would allow you to experience some funny scenarios just to bring you to the knowledge of a biblical truth. 

   

     

     

Other times, He uses very serious and unpleasant events to pass His divine message across to whomever He wishes to bring to book. 

        

        

        

Just last weekend (Saturday) I had gone to see my elder cousin in Orile, Lagos. It was dusk already, at about few minutes past 7PM. Around this time various Lagosians from all works of life flood the bus stops, patiently and anxiously waiting for empty buses to commute them home. 

       

       

       

I took a bus heading towards Costain from where I would ferry down to Orile. Things went on really smoothly and fine until I arrived at Costain. The crowd that I met there could be likened to a percentage of the multitude of people who tailed after Jesus in the bible days. Immediately, I reasoned that of two things, one must happen, and it had better been the good one. 

      

       

        

It was weekend, of course, and some of these people would have gone to visit loved ones, give themselves some threat, make a business deal, and what have you. But it was surprising to me because I had never seen any such thing around that bus stop, at such fairly odd hour. If there were to be a robbery attack at that bus stop that night, the robbers would have had enough meat to last them the whole of these remaining few months. 

       

       

        

For over thirty minutes I was waiting for a bus admist the crowd of waiting passengers. While many had different destinations, a better percentage of the commuters were going to Orile, my own destination. That was spicy discomfort. Such disdain! 

       

       

       

Several buses passed us by, empty. Trust Lagos drivers, when they're done for the day, not even the most weighty of doughs (money) could serve as a bait. Time was not on our sides, not on mine either. The only hope of consolation was that a few buses pulled up at interval, had some vacant seats but the devil's sting was; those buses wouldn't head for Orile. 

      

       

After a few minutes an empty bus pulled up right in front of me, I mean the bus was as empty as space. Now there was a problem. The problem was that I had to become a militant or else remain there till another bus pulled up from God-knows-where-and-when. All my life I never struggled for anything, never. But this one was different. 

       

        

        

As soon as I heard "RUN" in my mind's ear, the Usian Bolt in me got activated. I ran towards the bus and lay hold on an iron fitting placed somewhere above the door. I heard someone yelling "Aunty, you get muscle oooo," she was referring to a hefty lady who was also trying to make her way through to secure a seat. I had taken a seat (uncomfortably, though) when I saw this other woman's head pressed against the door. She persevered, though, and finally made her way in. 

      

      

   

Then a scripture of the bible land on my bed of thoughts. Here is it... 

     

      

Luke 13: 24 -- "Strive to enter in at the straight gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." (NKJV) 

STRIVE TO ENTER! 

   

  

 One of us could have had a broken arm during that rush hour. Someone could have hit his/her head against the door while dragging for a space. The little girl who was crying due to the coarse could have been killed in the process. That woman whose head was pressed against the door could have breathed her last. But, we all strived to get a space on the bus. And we sure got our individual spaces. 

     

      

      

There are those who could have been a gentle man as myself, as I have always been; they didn't make it into that bus. Maybe a subsequent one. But I bet that being gentle couldn't have helped anybody that night because more commuters kept joining the waiting crowd. And I understood much better while the bus ply the highway, imagining what it would have been like if I hadn't fought for my own space. 

     

      

      

 

Fellow kingdom men, wisdom is profitable. 

 

  

  

You must fight for a space. It doesn't matter how that happens, how you get bruised by the world's seemingly endless persecutions. What is important is that you strive to enter. 

     

     

      

Noah found grace in God's sight because he stood out of the multitude and lived his life to God's own pleasure. Prior to the flood, he could have preached the truth of God's judgment to the wandering souls of his generation whom themselves never took him seriously. Judgment eventually came, and only the man who had striven for over 120 years building an Ark and sounding the warning made it through. 

      

       

       

Fellow kingdom men, there is no other way to make it to this heaven than to fight for your own space. You must strive, you must fight, you must be violent (in the spirit of righteousness). 

       

        

       

Strive in prayer, strive in praises and worship; strive in studying the word of life, strive in preaching it to all nations; strive in loving kindness, strive in care and concern for souls; strive in giving alms, strive in offering your fats unto God. 

         

        

        

"Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves." - Matthew 10:16 (KJV) 

      

      

      

Remember, nations will despise you, hate you, persecute you, deny you, treat you like an outcast because of your decision to follow this Christ. But you must strive, amidst their inhumane treatment towards you, to enter into the eternal promise of life after life on earth. 

     

      

      

The journey did not promise to be smooth, but... 

     

      

"...He that shall endure to the end, same shall be saved."

      

       

       

Shalom. 

   

   

Michael Chidiebere Ituma

June, 2021.