My Leaking Water Cistern

 

By Anne Oboho

 

I once told you about my one-room apartment.

This one-room apartment has one toilet.

When I moved in 13 years ago, I met a faulty water cistern in the toilet, but bought a new one and replaced it.

But you know how almost everything you buy in the market is fake.

This water cistern started leaking water and I did not know. I only observed that my toilet was always flooded and I would bail water every time I want to use it.

The plumber could not detect the source of the flood.

But one day, I heard the sound of dripping water and discovered it came from that cistern.

I was happy that the source of the constant flood had been spotted.

I did not want to rush to the market and buy another cistern; that thing cost N5,000 13 years ago as fake as it is. I imagined that I might have to part with at least N50,000 for it now.

So, I did what any economic minded person would do. I put a small paint bucket under the cistern to collect the water.

But the paint bucket is small, so, I regularly empty it when it is full and keep the empty bucket back to collect the water.

One morning, however, I went to the toilet and saw that a small body of flood had collected and the bucket was full of water. The bucket must have been full overnight.

I just mumbled under my breadth ‘while men slept’.

Then I remembered Christ telling a story of how somebody's enemy went and sowed tares in his cornfield “while men slept.”

It occurred to me that most of the problems that visit us, visit us at night while we sleep.

The Bible says God who keeps us neither sleeps nor slumbers, but so is the devil and the various challenges we face in life; they don't sleep, they don't slumber.

The number one desire of Nigerian youths is money.

Because Nigeria is a place where people look down on you, write you off and refuse to give you opportunities if you don't have money.

So these young men work hard to get money, (any which way).

Then the herbalist who works with them to get this money does so (at night).

You will usually hear that baba says, wake up by 1am, or 2am and go to the junction and do sacrifice.

The same method is used by politicians seeking power.

They work at night (while men sleep).

I can't even start talking about witches and wizards, those mystical unseen powers we attribute our problems to sometimes.

The fact here is that your problems are sowed at night and they manifest themselves in the morning.

In the morning, you wake up to face sack from work, no customers to buy what you sell, quarrels and beatings from your spouse, rejections from people who are supposed to support you etc.

The lesson is that you have to stop being a lover of sleep.

There is no mystery solution to your problem, the solution is to stop sleeping and start working at night, like your enemies and other ambitious people.

If you are a Christian, Christ said, “watch and pray” watch means “keep your eyes open” stay awake at night while men sleep.

Watch, because when you watch, you can ‘see’. When you see what is coming after you, you can fight it.

Even when you pray, if you don't have an idea of what is disturbing you, or the cause of it, you will pray a general prayer.

But God loves specifics, He wants you to say, “Lord my landlord is on my neck for this month's rent, Lord I don't have the rent. The reason I don't have the rent is that I have been laid off from work. Please provide a job for me so I can pay my landlord.”

These kinds of prayers have the What, Why and How elements in them.

This is how you pray when you stop sleeping and start watching to see who that enemy is and where they are operating from.

 

I Hope You Enjoyed My Little Story.

(Image culled from compellingtruth.org)

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