Oluwafemi Ifesanmi

Several years before I saw a movie titled Pinocchio. The character Pinocchio was a wooden puppet made by a skilled old carpenter named Gepetto. One thing led to another and a fairy gave life to the wooden puppet.  Pinocchio, although still a wooden puppet began to see, walk, talk, and ear like a normal boy. The old man fell in love with it and treated it like his child. Pinocchio got lost one day and his father went in search of him, he traveled across seas to other countries and on the way, his boat capsized and he was swallowed by a big fish. After several scenes, Pinocchio also got swallowed by the same fish and he met his father in the belly of the big fish, it was a great reunion for them. The scene of the fish's belly was quite interesting. Although being a fable, it was a fairly big room partially flooded probably to the ankle. I remember seeing a table and I think a lit lantern... well it was obvious that after several weeks in the belly Gepetto had started living comfo...

Just as I previously described a snake experience, years later I had a similar experience in the same house. This time around I saw the elongated body of the snake under the parked vehicle as it wrapped itself around a helpless frog. It was getting ready to consume its prey when I saw it. As quiet and quickly as I could, I went in to inform my siblings. Apologies to all forms of animal right activists, I live in a geographical environment where snakes are dreaded and almost always killed; so we came out to... well you know – finish the job. By this time, the frog wasn’t visible anymore, rather a snake with a protruded belly was seen. Noticing us, it picked up the pace but was sluggish at doing that. It retreated for a hole in the vehicle wheels rim, however due to its previously swallowed meal, the obtrusive part of its body couldn’t fit in the hole. Its last resort was to regurgitate its meal. The unbelievable happened as the snake vomited the frog whole in other to escape. It as we...

Some years before I had a little experience which left me pondering. I was in the compound of my house that day enjoying the cool breeze and ruminating. I suddenly noticed a strange looking creature approaching me. I fixed my gaze on it and saw the appearance of a soil brown creature which had an unusually long green tail hopping towards me. It drew nearer and at this point, I became petrified so I barked out at it. At the blaring of my voice it was revealed. I then realised it was an endangered frog running to me for salvation. It was being chased almost neck and neck by a green snake. At the sound of my voice, the desire of the frog came through as the snake lifted up its head, saw me and retreated. Although the frog didn’t come up to meet me but I could almost hear it say thank you; it was indeed a close call to death for the frog. On a norm, the frog wouldn’t want to be sighted by me let alone run to me for help; as a matter of fact, it must have initially spotted me but...

When we pray, we have the intuition that GOD is able to do what we request and that makes us say our prayers. We wait at times to get answers to our prayers, while at times we aren’t sure if our prayers have been answered because the signs we expect isn’t what we see. To this effect GOD says Follow Me. The question now is Have you been Following HIM? When you are frequent with Him, you will recognise HIS idiosyncrasies. You would be like Elijah who saw the big signs of wind which broke the mountains, enormous earthquake and fire but still knew that GOD wasn’t there. You would recognise HIS Still small voice and follow Him. An example of a character in the Bible who would have made great impact if only He had left all and Followed was John. His testimony records saying “And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost” (John 1:33)...

This morning, we had our usual family devotion and treated the the topic "Good Neighborliness" ( Open Heavens devotional) . We were taught (in summary) to do good unto others as it will later on affect us in future (i.e. depending on how we had previously treated others). Not long after (still in the cold morning), I went to get somethings in the neighborhood and as I was returning home (right in front of my house), a vehicle parked by my side and the driver beckoned to me. (I thought- "oh another description of a location to give, let me hear where to". However, I was surprised at his request) He asked me to do him a favor saying in his local dialect that someone didn't close the boot of his vehicle properly, so I should help him raise it up and close it properly. "Oh, no harm done", I thought and although being skeptical, I wanted to oblige. I looked upon the boot of the vehicle and as I was about venturing into the "favor", in a split seco...

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. John 4:18" Devotion : The opening scripture has given us a standard of rule to measure true love. This must be taken seriously in order to identify true love on the one hand and false love on the other. True love/perfect love cast out fear, doubt, and anxiety. Therefore, any time you want to demonstrate love and you feel fear, doubt, and anxiety, please don't exercise love because your heart is telling you that there is something fishy about the subject of your love, that is, the one to whom you want to demonstrate/show love. The subject/person may either be taking advantage of you or looking for your destruction. The enemy also reads the Bible and seeks to rob us of our blessing by using his children against us. On the other hand, if you are about to show love to someone and you have no fear, doubt, and anxiety, go ahead and demonstrate ...

A pair of fetuses gradually began to develop in a womb, days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months. Soon they were used to each other and their practically small and tight surrounding. One day, the first communicated with the other saying "I hear voices, there seems to be something more than this current environment we are"; the other kept quiet and went about his business. "Didn't you hear me, or haven't you noticed strange things happening around here: vibrations, movement, voices... I believe there's more to this present place". The other one looked at his neighbor disdainfully and retorted "if there's something else, why haven't we seen it since all these while; we were both small and have gradually grown this big that this place is even too tight, and it's been long we've been hearing voices and feeling vibrations but still nothing has happened,... Please if you don't have anything important to say, leave me alone....