A colleague brought a fourteen year-old girl to see me. Apparently, her mother’s prophet had a horrific dream about her portending great danger. His antidote was just as horrific. He told the mother that her daughter would have to bathe naked publicly at Bar Beach, Lagos or she would meet a bad end. Despite her protests, her mother put her foot down: the word of the “man-of-God” must be obeyed.

In 2003, Femi-Kevin’s headmaster sent me an email forecasting that he would fail his GCSE exams because he had done so badly in his mock exams. I wrote an angry response and asked him: “Are you God? How are you so sure he would fail? Is it because he is black?” After he took the exams, God did something strange. Before his results came out officially, he showed them to me in a dream; subject-by-subject and grade-by-grade. The results were excellent: Femi-Kevin got so many “A” grades.

God sometimes tells us the future beforehand through dreams. Thus, Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar: “There is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and he has told you in your dream what will happen in the future.” (Daniel 2:28). Since only God is able to do this, dreams become one of the things that affirm conclusively that our Lord is God. Jesus says: “I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am he.” (John 13:19).

In September 2012, I had a dream. I was somewhere high up in the mountains and did not know exactly what I was doing there. Suddenly, there was so much pomp and circumstance. A lot of security detail poured into the place and there was no room for me to quickly make my way out of there. I was wondering what all the palaver was about when out came President Barack Obama of the United States.

In the scriptures, God often spoke to people through dreams and visions. Jacob’s life was radically impacted by a series of dreams. God revealed little Joseph’s destiny to him through dreams. Another Joseph dreamed dreams concerning instructions about the birth of Jesus Christ. Pilate’s wife was warned in a dream about her husband’s dealings with Jesus’ persecutors. The Holy Spirit gave the apostles Peter and John visions.

It started out as a Sunday morning service like every other one in a Lekki, Lagos parish of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). One of the church workers was at the podium briefing the congregation on the up-coming events of the week. Nobody thought anything was unusual when the pastor’s wife came to the pulpit and asked to address the church. Nobody thought that to be out of the ordinary, until she started speaking.

I became the Pastor of Healing Wings, Chapel of Faith in 1998. But nine years later, I felt constrained to resign. My resignation came from the sudden realisation that even though God specifically called me to ministry, he never asked me to pastor a church.

I was having lunch at “Sweet Sensation,” a fast-food restaurant in Lagos, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I looked back to see a gentleman grinning at me from ear to ear. “Dr. Aribisala, how are you doing?” he asked expansively. It was one of my former pastors.

My oldest brother, Bayo, left Nigeria without telling anyone where he was going. He did not tell our aged parents, his wife or his children. And he did not tell Biodun and me, his brothers. Moreover, he communicated with no one thereafter, so we did not know his whereabouts.

I was reviewing this article, initially titled “Ungodly Prayers,” when the Lord suddenly spoke. He said: “Femi, it is written, ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but they have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.” (Matthew 21:13; John 10:10).