MONDAY - 25TH AUGUST, 2025
MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL - Olusola & Oreoluwa ADEJUMO
LIKE A PELICAN OF THE WILDERNESS AND LIKE A SPARROW ALONE ON THE HOUSE TOP - One Alone Series 002
Psalms 102:6-7, KJV
"6 I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert. 7 I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top."
When these verses in Psalms came to me, God in a flash took me back to my 300 Level in Tai Solarin Univeristy of Education when I had to move from a community called Imaweje to live in another called Ijagun so that I'll be able to attend to my executive duties as the Anglican Students' Fellowship President amidst being Christian Union (CU) President. That was after having been its Secretary.
We all didn't come to the realization of this until the demands of the office began to call me to near where the administrative headquarters and many of our members were resident. Before this time, I had spent a tenure living in Imaweje and I had experienced first hand the need to pack to the nearest community. So, some other executives encouraged me to move. This moment coincided with the expiration of my tenancy at Imaweje. But before the expiration or ever before I found a new place at Ijagun, I had a dream as a response to my prayer to God to help me find where He'll want me to live.
I saw a lone bed being brought out of a room for me to occupy. That was all. So, when my tenancy expired and I had nowhere to go and haven't gotten a place to rent in the new community I was looking at, a brother in the fellowship, who was also a family friend and a member of my home church in Ayetoro, Yewa Anglican Diocese, Ogun State took me in. I'm talking about Bro. Sina Adeleye, popularly called Shyna who was a vibrant drama member of the fellowship. I took him as my elder brother on campus. He had earlier accommodated me when I came for Post JAMB and then for a period before I got the Imaweje house as a new intake. So, you could call him my school father or brother.
But I couldn't continue in his own room too because that'll make us three or more people living there (if I could recall). On that note, someone in that building introduced a store room to us which was by the bathrooms and toilets of the same building. When we went to inspect it, the only thing they brought out of there was a bed just like I had seen in my dream.
So, for the sake of privacy and need not to inconvenience others any longer, I moved all my own possession into that little room. You should have seen me in this store room. Apart from the fact that the bathrooms' and toilets' odour would not let me rest, my corridor and the very entrance to my room was always wet. You can say, sea never dries. You can't but step on water to enter my store room. Moreso, the wall I share with the bathroom is always wet, having absorbed water over the years, stinking and therefore leading to an inlet of water often. Even my bed (the student type) could not be fully stretched at length for the shortness of length of the room. I had to lay it on something so it doesn't contact the floor directly.
Apart from the revival and salvation that God wrought through me towards many students in that house, all other things were a mess. It was in that building I saw marijuana smokers, opposite sex who were living as couples and would go to bathe together in the bathroom at the same time. When I spoke with some other Christians there, they already grew weary of doing anything. They had tried and tried to revive the house. It was my arrival that gave them fire and brought some level of encouragement and change.
It was for that I didn't regret being there because I knew it was an assignment. More so, I kept the dream I had in mind. The day I was leaving, having gotten a new place but not even at Ijagun but Abapawa (another far distanced community), it was as if I shouldn't leave. If I wasn't mistaken, I was there for a period of let's say three or six months but those months look like years in anguish and a sort of despair for the environmental experiences that brought some touching emotional and psychologically feelings.
But before then, nothing of that hostel was to be desired. This hostel was called "Joy Gate" but it was acting and living the opposite. It's the same hostel harbouring cultists. What is it I didn't see there? All sorts. I just thank God I went there and came out in one piece and in good conscience of having not backslided yet fulfilled God's will.
One day, ASF General Secretary then, Sis Bukky Oluwase (now Akinola) and some sisters visited me for once. They immediately encouraged me not to relent in my search for a better accommodation. It was a shame and embarrassment I had to endure living in such a place as ASF TASUED President and Christian Union, General Secretary. You know, I was known far and wide.
I could say I rarely saw people visit me. Who'll visit one who lives in such a place? I was therefore like a pelican in the wilderness. I was all alone in the midst of that. I could recall that sleeping at night comes with anxiety and discomfort. I rarely could sleep because of the long time irritation caused on the wall by the bathroom water. I vomited on occasions especially when I'm brushing my teeth and the memory of all those environmental mess were recalled. For that, I rarely stay at home except to come and sleep at night or prepare to check out.
It was a situation I don't want its repeat in life. That room's environment causes crawling on my body. I wanted to run but I knew I had come to stay. I didn't leave and couldn't have left until God gave me the room of Bro. Bimbo Adesanya in Abapawa who had just graduated as an executive of ASF TASUED. He even paid my house rent. He left the room as it was. I only added my things to what he had gathered. Bro. Sola Okunoye, a brother of immense meekness and service to God who owns a bike was used by God for me to help pack to the new place.
But for the moment I had to live in that house, I sure knew God was working out something in me apart from the works he brought me to do there also. So, are you currently in a situation of a pelican in the wilderness (desert), of a sparrow alone on the housetop? Does it look like you're deserted, left alone or behind, jilted, forgotten and backdoored? It's for a purpose. See and fulfill the purpose for which God permitted your being left behind or jilted. Maintain a good attitude. Let God use it to shift your thinking on how to abase and abound, form good character, build meekness and resilience in you. What doesn't kill you will make you stronger. Believe it! That moment is almost over and you shall be brought out of your waste places and ruins. Amen!
PRAYER: May I not sacrifice a good attitude and absorption of lessons during my temptation/solitude hours just for pleasure or comfort.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR
II Cor. 11; Psalms 124-127
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