Ini Akpan Morgan
Among the inhabitants of a faraway city on an eastern peninsula lived a prostitute, who many in her neighbourhood knew openly, in spite of her being a prostitute, because of her neighbourliness and transparent affection. They all wondered why a woman so richly blessed with character would choose to be a prostitute.
She lived among others like her in a brothel in the neighbourhood. Those who frequent that brothel would usually see desperate fun seeking men enter and exit this woman’s cubicle within the brothel.
Uniquely, it was she alone who knew why she was a prostitute, and when her circumstance threw this reality at her, she could not pretend about it and so she made a vow to accept her circumstance of being a prostitute and asked in prayers for her deliverance from the profession of shame.
As seed, she vowed never to tell anyone her story except the man who will meet her as a prostitute and marry her as such. Her story, she determined, will await her husband because, to her, since she is no “virgin”, she will deliver her story to her husband a “virgin”, as hers has been taken away before he arrived.
Because she had kept her story for herself, she never minded how the world outside looked out at her. Nevertheless, her strength was found in the sound thoughts that made her, in spite of what she was into, to await on God, whom she believed was abundantly able to change her story from physical shame to spiritual beauty.
What she was on the external did not bother her, as long as she was breaking good grounds from her inside. She believe that God can change her story from what it was, what it is, to what it was destined to be. So her focus was not on the past, nor the present, her focus was on her future. She never missed her moments with God.
Wisdom told her “believe in yourself, and believe in what you are presently doing, occupy in the expectation of the coming of Christ Jesus, and serve in whatever capacity you find, for the upliftment of humanity. You will win a sure reward”.
So when a customer enters her cubicle for her attention, she would attend to him faithfully and committedly give herself to him. But before she asks for her fees, she would humbly ask the customer to kneel with her in prayers. Some who have some moments to spare comply, but others would mock her.
In her prayer together with her customer, she would say “I thank you heavenly father for making my path to cross with my brother. Thank you for the benefit we have consumed together before you. Help him and help me. Thank you for giving us our bodies, amen”.
Usually, her customers were taken aback: “what manner of a woman is this?” And when asked why she prays after every bout of immorality, she would answer, “I am on an assignment, and I am doing my best to upgrade myself”.
From the reverence she drew by her character, and her not disclosing why she was into the business, many offered to help her start a business but she was focused in meeting the vow she made. She made a difference in her community and many of her customers favoured her and some undertook to help her. Finally one married her.
Now, when she was telling her husband why he found her where he found her, the husband wept bitterly and uncontrollable, having understood the suffering the wife underwent and how she stayed put, unweavered, until he met her. He looked again at her, and said to her “you are an Angel sent to me”.
However, before her husband found her, the weakest point in her faith to hold on strong was whenever she was in Church. When she is discovered to be a prostitute, they would asked her not to attend church any longer until she denounces her profession. Nobody knew her vow with God and her story remained for her husband only. As it is, her story changed for God. She became the wife of a Minister of the gospel and they both did well with her husband. It was about saving souls.
Lesson:
Faith is unique in that it does not see the present – faith is dysfunctional in the present. Faith is about a sure future a man determines to end with. Faith is a future God’s word takes you into. Faith comes by hearing what the word of God tells you you an become, mouth to heart, in order to contain and control the issues of the heart in spite of what happens around you in the present.
Every believer is working for the perfection of his soul by his submission to the Holy Spirit. Again, faith is impotent to the present, it is rather about one’s visualization of the future by taking the substances and evidences for the future; as God has predestinated it from the beginning in his word.
Therefore, we do not live for what we were, or for what we are, we live for what we will become. Faith transcends time, it is the power that pools the future into a present evidential reality. Faith does not make you accountable for what you are now, but for what you will be in the future. You are accountble to God for your now, but your faith makes you accoutable for your future.
This is why “time and chance” happens to us all.
I pray this revelation from the throne of heaven would bless and heat the universal church into the gold she was meant to become. Amen!
God bless you all.
Ini Akpan Morgan is called an Apostle with the mandate to Teach on the liberty of the Spirit with the vigour of a Prophet.
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