25th March, 2018
By Femi Aribisala
Picture this: I am standing in the middle of the road with a bullet wound in my left leg. Nevertheless, a strange voice says to me: “There is nothing wrong with your leg.” What about all the blood? What about the fact that I cannot walk?
But you simply did not argue with that voice. It not only described an implausible situation; it decreed it.
When I chose to believe this illogical reassurance, all fear about my wound disappeared again. The earlier inexplicable peace returned. I just knew it was only a matter of time before a deliverer would come to take us away.
Diagnosis
While waiting, with my blood draining away on that road, I had the opportunity to review the situation. Then I realised there was indeed something supernatural going on. Apart from the money left auspiciously in the glove compartment of our car, I noticed a number of amazing imponderables.
In the first place, apart from driving at top speed and slamming into the lamppost, nobody in the car was hurt. We had no seat-belts on. Nevertheless, I did not even hit my chest on the steering-wheel. My son was sitting between my wife and I. He could easily have been thrown out of the car through the windscreen. But God, in his mercy, prevented this from happening.
In the second place, the lamppost, which I thought had scuttled my plans, actually saved my life. Standing there by the road-side, I discovered that my brilliant getaway plan was actually reckless. The road was a descending flyover. Without the lamppost, I would have driven clean off the road headlong onto another road down below where cars were moving in the opposite direction. That would have spelt disaster. As it was, the lamppost was a lifesaver in that it broke the fall.
God used the incident to bring to my understanding that my inclination to do-it-alone was self-destructive and even suicidal. It also became my first lesson in Jesus’ principle: “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it.” (Matthew 16:25).
But the third miracle was the biggest of all. That had to do with the gunshot. The bullet pierced the body of the car, shattered the glass from within and came out the other side. Had it continued on that trajectory, it would have hit me in the stomach. Failing that, it would have hit my son who was sitting to my right, between my wife and I.
But having come through the body of the car, the bullet did something strange. It changed direction completely and headed downwards, burying itself in my leg below the knee. This was the LORD’S doing; it is marvelous in my eyes. (Psalm 118:23).
Deliverance
Meanwhile, on their departure, the armed robbers sped down the road shooting in the air as they went. A young lady that God used to rescue us told us exactly what happened next. Everybody made a dash for it. So when Karen came up the road shouting frantically for help, nobody was interested. It was a situation of every man for himself.
But something apparently came over this young woman in a taxi who insisted the driver must stop. The more the driver protested the more adamant she became. When the driver finally succumbed, another passenger in the taxi would have none of it. He jumped out and ran off in fear and annoyance.
They brought the taxi where I was with our son. We quickly abandoned our car and I was bundled off to the nearby EKO Hospital.
On getting there, I was wheeled into an emergency ward. I had to undergo a quick x-ray in order to determine the nature and gravity of my wound. But I felt again the need to reassure my wife. So I appealed to the nurses that I needed to talk to her. When she came, I told her: “Karen, there is a bullet in my leg, but there is nothing wrong with my leg.”
Suddenly, she burst out laughing. She laughed and laughed. I have thought about that laughter so many times since that day, and have never understood it. Did she laugh because she thought I was crazy? Was she just relieved at the deliverance? She has not been able to explain it to me herself.
Evangelists
The x-ray revealed the bullet had splintered a bone. The doctors told me their first concern was the bone. Only after the fracture was dealt with would they address the issue of the bullet, since it was not life threatening. Therefore, the next morning, my leg was promptly encased in a plaster.
I spent five days in EKO Hospital. Those days were remarkable because of those who came to visit me while I was there. There are apparently many evangelists who go from room to room and from bed to bed in hospitals witnessing to the sick. In my five days at EKO Hospital, I became hostage to quite a number of these people. I would not ordinarily have given them the time of day. But stuck in a hospital bed, I was at their mercy.
I noticed that, in the main, they were shabbily dressed. Most of them spoke very bad English. Some were clearly not well educated. Nevertheless, it was apparent that virtually all of them knew of things about which I was completely ignorant. They spoke with great conviction about things I had not learnt in all my nine years of university education and ten years in an academic research institute.
It was evident to me from their terms of reference that there was one basic source to their knowledge: the Bible. Therefore, once I left the hospital, I simply had to find out some of these things for myself. I bought a Bible and buried my nose in it. I read it fanatically and voraciously, and it turned my world upside down.
Enigma
I am fully convinced the Lord had been trying to get my attention long before then, but I was not interested. However, in the middle of a life-threatening attack, my ears were opened. I say this now to the amusement of some but with all seriousness. In order for me to be a full-fledged Christian, I had to be shot. That is how hardened my heart was. That is also how determined the love of God can be.
On Damascus Road, the Lord spoke to me in that enigmatic manner I have since come to recognise as his voice. He told me nothing would happen to me and, immediately thereafter, something happened. I was shot. A bullet was lodged in my leg and it was covered in blood. Nevertheless, he insisted nothing was wrong with my leg.
I would not ordinarily have given heed to such obvious illogicality. I was not a fool and did not believe things that flew in the face of “reality.” But that night, on that dark bleak and lonely road, my choices were severely limited. I had no choice but to believe.
Nothing indeed happened to me on that fateful date with destiny on Airport Road, and no one has ever had to remove the bullet from my leg.
[email protected]; www.femiaribisala.com
On Damascus Road (2),
By Femi Aribisala
The time was around 8 p.m. on December 26, 1993, and I was standing by the roadside on Lagos Airport road with an armed robber rifling through my pockets.
He was also removing my watch from my wrist. Another man was removing the suitcase in the back seat of our car and loading it into the boot of their car. And then I heard that implausible voice once again, defiantly oblivious to the situation.
“Femi,” it repeated, “nothing is going to happen to you here.”
Time up!
I was not really paying much attention. My whole life suddenly flashed through my mind. So this is how it all ends, I thought. I looked through the window of the car and saw my wife clutching our six year-old son to her breast. It was like seeing the future in the present. “So at such an early age this woman would become a widow,” I thought.
I noticed she was praying. I could see her lips moving silently. I did not believe in prayer and I never prayed. As far as I was concerned, the fact that she was praying told me that she was in distress. So I leaned through the window and decided to reassure her. But the only reassurance I could give her was the “ridiculous” one I had been given. So I said to her: “Karen, nothing is going to happen to us here.”
But something seemed to be happening. One of the armed robbers could not open the boot. He asked me for the key of the car, but I could not give it to him because it was jammed in the ignition as a result of hitting the lamppost. The man did not believe me. They had clearly seen us putting one of the heavy pieces of luggage in the boot. He went over to my wife’s side of the car and leaned across so as to remove the key but could not.
In the middle of that entire crisis over the key, one simple fact completely escaped me. Our abductors also seemed oblivious to it. The boot could be opened without a key. The car was a Nissan Altima, and you could open the boot by pressing a latch on the floor of the driver’s side of the car. But God preserved that luggage by refusing to allow the boot to be opened.
Finger of God
The fact that the boot could not be opened worsened the situation. I could tell that, with the frustration of being unable to dislodge the key from the ignition, the temperature of the entire incident was rising. But then, God had a plan.
A few days before then, I had collected the takings of one of my video shops in Lagos and put the money in the glove compartment of the car. Thereafter, every time I remembered that the money was there, I told myself I would retrieve it later. That night, on Airport Road, I realised why the money was left in the car.
One of the armed robbers opened the glove compartment and saw the money. I don’t recall precisely how much it was. But it was in the days when there were no hundred, two hundred, five hundred or one thousand denominations in the Nigerian currency as there are now. So the money tended to be bulky, even if it was not actually that much.
The discovery of the money brought down the temperature of the atmosphere. The man who discovered it was all excitement. “Look what I found, look what I found,” he shouted gleefully to his partners in crime. Somehow, this atoned for the inability to retrieve the luggage from the boot.
Dangerous Stand-off
It was time to go. The man who had shot at me re-cocked his gun. It was one of those revolvers you snap at the top in order to re-load. He pointed the gun at me and barked: “Lie down with your face to the ground!” I don’t know where I got the courage from, but I refused. I told him calmly: “I am not going to lie down. You can take whatever you want and go, but I am not going to lie down.”
The man glared at me. His look spoke eloquently. It said: “Do you know whom you are talking to? Don’t you know that I have the power to shoot you dead right now?” I now know that he could have no power whatsoever against me unless it had been given to him from above. (John 19:11).
For a moment, we stood looking at one another silently, with him pointing the gun at me. But then, I don’t know what he saw because suddenly, he changed his mind and walked away. They all jumped into their car and drove off.
As I said, while the robbery was taking place, I was filled with an incredible feeling of peace. From the time I heard the voice, which assured me: “Nothing is going to happen to you here,” I was filled with peace clearly out of kilter with the danger at hand. The assurance itself was profoundly nonsensical. Immediately after I received it, something did happen. I was shot in the leg.
But since my car was wrapped around a lamppost, I had run out of options. So I had no choice but to believe the unbelievable. My situation was like that of a man falling down a cliff, looking desperately for something to hold on to. Suddenly a saviour appears out of nowhere. But instead of catching him, he throws him a thread. “Catch this,” he says “and I will pull you up.”
You know for certain a thread cannot hold your weight. But this is really no time to argue. If you have other options, you would surely ignore the thread. But as it is, the thread is the only option available, even if it is absolutely ludicrous. So you grab the thread and unbelievably, the thread; a thread, holds your weight.
Thread of Hope
Once I held on to this slim thread of hope, I was filled with an incredible feeling of peace. This peace made no sense whatsoever since it was in the middle of an armed robbery attack and a bullet had just been shot into my leg. Even more paradoxical was the fact that, once the armed robbers left, the peace lifted and I was filled with fear. It was as if I had been dreaming and had now come back to my senses. Clearly, I needed immediate medical attention.
My wife jumped out of the car and ran down the road shouting for help. I looked down and realised that my trouser leg, my sock and shoe were completely soaked with blood. So I said to myself: “Well, you escaped that one. But now you are going to bleed to death right here in the middle of this road.”
But immediately that thought came into my head, the voice I heard earlier came back to contradict it. It was matter-of-fact and conclusive. It was also just as inscrutable as before:
“Femi,” it said categorically, “there is nothing wrong with your leg.” CONTINUED.
On Damascus Road (1)
By Femi Aribisala
My wife was coming back from a trip to the United States and I went to Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos with my six-year old son to meet her. She had two major pieces of luggage. I put one in the boot and the other in the back seat of the car. It was around seven-thirty in the evening, and we set out for home.
Soon, a car overtook us with some people who seemed to be shouting at us for some inexplicable reason. I was lost in thought and paid little attention to them. It is commonplace in Lagos for some driver to be upset with you rightly or wrongly. But no sooner had they overtaken us than they swerved and blocked the road with their car. Immediately, some men jumped out menacingly.
Armed Robbers
From that moment everything became surreal. Indeed, it seemed that everything went into slow motion. I could not believe the dexterity and spontaneity of my reactions. I slammed on the brakes and the car stopped. I quickly switched the car to reverse gear and pressed on the accelerator and the car moved back. Our assailants were banking on the element of surprise, but my prompt reactions upstaged them. Having quickly reversed the car, I again brought it to a stop.
In front of us on the road were four armed men.
I had always believed in myself. I saw myself as a self-made man and I regarded myself as a problem-solver. True, this was a rather bigger problem than I had had to deal with before. This problem seemed to be one of life and death. But it was a problem nevertheless. Therefore, unlike others who might have simply surrendered, I decided to solve the problem.
I needed to make a quick decision. I had to decide whether to continue to reverse the car, which I could only do for so long; or to go forward, never minding our assailants; or to surrender, which might be fatal.
James Bond
I seemed to have all the time in the world to make this split-second decision. I decided to fight for my life rather than surrender to the unknown. I made up my mind to go forward at top speed to the right and try to avoid their car, which was biased to the left side of the road. I also decided that, if the man to my extreme right did not get out of the way, I would overrun him with the car.
I put the car back into the first gear and went ahead to execute my plan. I slammed hard on the accelerator. The man to my extreme right literally had to jump out of the road because I aimed the car directly at him. I managed to avoid the car with which they had blocked the road and made a dash for it. I told myself if they chased me in their car they would not be able to catch me. These people did not know whom they were dealing with.
But before I could begin to congratulate myself on turning the tables on our abductors, my plans went disastrously wrong. A lamppost appeared out of nowhere, and I slammed headlong into it.
I have been back on that road so many times since that day and have wondered why I did not see that lamppost. But I did not. Once I hit the lamppost, I was trapped. Once I hit the lamppost, all my brilliantly executed escape plans turned out to be foolhardy. Once I hit the lamppost, I knew I was in trouble. I looked out the window to see that the man I nearly ran down had got up and was now coming towards me. I knew there could only be one thing on his mind: vengeance.
When God speaks peace, peace is established… Therefore, on that fateful night, in the middle of a deadly armed robbery attack, I experienced inexplicable peace: a peace that surpasses all understanding.
Jesus, My Saviour
But before I could panic or be resigned to my fate, something even more dramatic happened. I heard a voice. It was not a booming voice. It was a “still small voice.” It was authoritative and calm. It spoke with quiet reassurance. “Femi,” it said, “nothing is going to happen to you here.”
Before I could even think about what this meant under the circumstances, the offended armed robber drew near. Again, I saw everything in slow motion. Grimacing, he pointed his gun at me and fired.
I saw a flash of light and the glass at my side of the door came crashing down. Don’t ask me why, but I opened the door and came out of the car. Only then did I realise I could not walk. There was something wrong with my left leg. I noticed then that the bullet must have hit me in the leg, but I never felt it enter my body.
With the benefit of hindsight, I wonder what my assailant must have thought had happened. There must have been something disturbing about pointing a gun at a man from virtually point blank range and firing, and nevertheless the man you fired at calmly opened the door and came out. In this part of the world where many believe in the occult (juju or voodoo), I wonder what the man thought happened to the bullet he fired directly at me.
Prince of Peace
I am not a brave man. I would hardly describe myself as courageous. I had, for example, a chronic fear of flying as a result of a hair-raising flight I had in the early 1980s from Lagos to Jos. And yet, I was not afraid of our assailants on Airport Road.
Surprisingly, I was somewhat indifferent to the attack. I seemed to be abstracted from the entire incident, and to be like someone standing on the side lines watching an unfolding reality show. And yet. I knew however the matter was resolved, my life would never be the same again.
I now know that apart from the armed robbery, something definitely supernatural was going on. I now know that it was God who spoke and told me in effect not to worry, and that nothing was going to happen to me. I now know that when God speaks, he speaks peace. The psalmist says: “I will hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people and to his saints.” (Psalm 85:8).
When God speaks peace, peace is established. (Mark 4:39). Therefore, on that fateful night, in the middle of a deadly armed robbery attack, I experienced inexplicable peace: a peace that surpasses all understanding. (Philippians 4:7).
As I came out of the car, the armed robber who had shot at me did not shoot again. I say this because he could easily have done so. I believe he knew he could not have missed me the first time, and yet I was apparently unhurt.
Instead of shooting again, he came over and slapped me. “Why were you driving like that?” he demanded. How else, I wonder, should one drive when accosted by armed robbers? Of course, I did not dare tell him that.
“Please don’t be offended,” I pleaded. “I was only trying to get away from you as best as I could.” CONTINUED.
[email protected]; www.femiaribisala.com