I always thought scaffolding was reliable because of how workers climbed it to reach the top of houses until one day in Church, a few days before Christmas, someone fell from the top and broke his shoulder.
We had come to Church that weekend to prepare for our Christmas carol service and although almost everyone had left, a few of us still stuck around. Some of the decorators were around also, pinning decorations on the wall.
We chatted away excitedly and our noise filled the air. I remembered eating Jolof rice that evening and just as I was about to put another spoon of Jolof rice into my mouth, I heard a loud bang.
The scaffolding came crashing down and a loud cry followed. Everyone rushed toward the noise to see what was happening. As I got there, I saw a guy, one of the decorators on the floor writhing in pain. His shoulder had snapped and blood was in sight.
Look, it was a gruesome sight.
We couldn’t move closer to him because his shoulder had been displaced and blood trickled down. He was lying on the floor looking at our faces and honestly, our expressions were scary.
I realized that our scary expressions were going to scare him into a shock so I knelt down beside him, and began to stroke the arm, I knelt down right beside the blood and stroked the dislodged arm.
As more people came closer to him, what they saw shook them and they moved away. I continued to stroke his arm as his blood trickled on my jeans. I started to reasuure him, telling him that he was going to be okay and that an ambulance was already on his way. This calmed him down a bit and he nodded.
He tried to sit up, but since his arm was dislodged, he needed help. I tried to help him sit up but his weight was too much for me. All the while, people stood afar from us and even though I signaled for their help, no one came close.
A few minutes later, the ambulance came and they lifted him up. I held onto the dislodged arm as he was carried off into the bus and they drove off. When I got back into the Church, people were amazed, they even started to hail me for my courage, asking me how I was able to remain calm in that situation.
Look, everything we enjoy today is on the other side of courage. The price to pay to be a trailblazer is the price of courage. If you ever wondered what the secret behind any great exploit was, know today that it is courage.
No, I wasn’t built like that, I wasn’t born courageous. In fact, I battled everyday with the spirit of fear. Fear of opinions, fear of what people would say. But I learned later in life that it takes courage to defy the crowd and to defy their opinions.
On a normal day, I would never kneel down beside a human being who has a broken shoulder and let his blood trickle on my clothes, but I knew that it was either that or risk the guy entering into a shock. One he may never come out of.
What I simply did was to remove my garment of fear and wear the one of courage. The one God has given to His children.
God said to Gideon “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’ (Judges 7:2). And when Gideon asked those who were scared to return, the Bible records that 22,000 of them returned.
Listen, you may be bogged down by fear and dismay, but it will come a time where you would have to be the one that will rise up, despite your fear, and conquer the army. When that time comes, you have to be able to do it, otherwise, you will be conquered.
Or maybe in your current life situation, things have gone really awry quickly, and the only thing it takes is courage to press on. See, one thing I’ve realized is that the only way to see horses and chariots is to go out to battle. When you don’t go out, you won’t see any.
When you don’t start that business, you won’t face any challenges, when you do not make up your mind to be different and break that family pattern, altars will not fight you. But that means that you will never see the other side of courage. The great stories that we read today are stories of people who did exploits of courage in the midst of pain.
Don’t celebrate exploits if you will not make up your mind to do any but don’t remain in mediocrity if you know God has given you the power to do exploits. We live in a world where people find pleasure justifying mediocrity, don’t join that bandwagon.
The Bible says God has not given us the spirit of fear, but somehow we have it. The question is how did we get it? You need to conquer fear, the fear of opinions, the fear of the past, the fear of the future, every kind of fear. Be courageous and do it afraid.
When I was building my business, I never got any gurantee from anyone that they would buy from me, yet I built it and I’m still building it. When I left my seemingly rosy job in the bank, there was no guarantee that I would get another one, but I left.
Maybe you don’t have to leave your job to do exploits, but know that when God gives you a marching order, you have to be courageous to go ahead with it.
Just a few months back, another decorator climbed a scaffolding to pin decorations on the Church wall in preparation for a major convention. I simply picked up my bag and moved away from there.