Title: INSANE
Name: Agent Emem. A
Date: 9 Mar 22
Mission: Operation Hagiasmos, Operation Sozo
Sometime in August 2018, I was being swallowed up in my own folly and pride.
During that season, God was talking to me about pride but I thought He was talking to the church group, not me! I believed I was a very humble person as there was nothing to be prideful about in my life. I wasn’t as holy as the others, as intelligent, as spiritual or anointed, and certainly not as gifted as other people. So where would this pride come from? I had nothing to boast about so I didn’t agree that there was any pride in me.
The Lord continued to speak on it here and there, both during the church meetings, and during my personal time with Him but I was adamant. So the Lord found a way to deal with it Himself by helping me learn obedience through suffering.
On the 15th of August 2018, a day before everything began, I had a dream. In the dream, the different states in the country were preparing for elections. The then Governor of Akwa Ibom state gathered some youths in a place that looked like a stadium. He was trying to talk to them about his fears concerning the elections and he was very agitated.There was so much noise so I used the opportunity to address the crowd but all I was saying was actually directed to the Governor. I really can’t remember the things I told him, but I was trying to encourage him. I told him not to be afraid of the outcome of the election because God is in control. After that, I began to address the youths as well. After a while, I believe I was done saying the impressions God had laid in my heart and the things He had given me to say. Instead of me keeping quiet, I continued speaking. I began to speak with my own ability and my words, and even when my time was up, I was still looking for another opportunity to continue speaking.
When I was given the opportunity and began to talk again using my own knowledge and ability, I got a knock on my head from someone I couldn’t identify. I was very angry! “Why would this person give me a knock on my head?” I questioned, and I woke up.
This dream actually played out during the entire season of my folly. My head and my mind were taking over. It was so obvious that there was pride somewhere but I couldn’t see it.
One of pastor Ita’s favourite sermons is about the ages to come, and how the overcomers will rule and reign with Christ. He likes to teach us about the Sons of God, and how they will restore the earth. I became very interested in this, and the scriptures that spoke about it fascinated me so much. I really wanted to understand the whole concept out of my pride, just so I could talk about it and share new ‘rhema’. I tried to dig into the Bible just to extract juicy content because I wanted to feel knowledgeable. I began to talk about things I wasn’t supposed to talk about, and began to pull on strings way above my levels.
I remember one of those times, I got a mic during the church meeting and shared what I believed the Lord was saying. I was using the scriptures to talk about things that would happen in the age to come and did so with so much pride and arrogance. I felt very intelligent.
Asides from the pride that came with my new found love, I was disobedient to the authorities above me in church – my pastor and the leadership. I developed a disregard for authority apart from being prideful already. I despised some of the warnings that had been given to us as a church; about how to pray. We were taught not to move ahead of God, rather to let God guide us into all things.
In this season, I began to know things that nobody told me. For example, a new batch of leaders were to be chosen in church and I don’t know how I got to know, I just knew it. Strange things also started to happen to me as I began to hear voices in my head, which made me very unstable. Somewhere in my mind, I began to think that God was taking me through a process to get me ready for leadership. It believed that everyone who became a leader had to go through a trial period, tough times to get prepared.
I could understand better with people who said they were the sons of God because of my experience. I began to feel very powerful, and felt I could do anything, enter anywhere, tear down and pull down things! My interpretation of scriptures also became erroneous. I started seeing myself like Jesus, the son of God. I felt all authority had been given to me in heaven and on earth. I started to see myself as a rock of offense whom they were going to fight and persecute because they persecuted Christ. I concluded I was sent to destroy the works of the devil like Jesus. This was the major reason I disobeyed and disregarded the words of my pastor and leaders in church because I felt they were trying to stop me from doing things.
I remember vividly one of those days, I was walking on the street in Uyo when I felt I had the calling to set the captives free. All of a sudden, I didn’t want to see any mad person on the street again. I became so worried and concerned for them, to the point that I began to see them as my brothers. I thought “How can my brother be going through this? How can the devil do this to my brother?” I became desperate to see them healed. On more than two occasions, I went to hug a mad person on the street and began to pray for him to get healed. I felt I was called to these kinds of healings and the time had come for me to set out to begin ministry.
I began to do things on the street and the feeling of being more powerful than every other person began to grow. I started to see people as mere mortals, and I had transcended. This went on for days. I also started trying to know the prophetic implication and significance of numbers. I believed everyone on earth had a number and prophetic significance. I would pick up a recharge card and try to extract prophetic codes from the recharge card! Even dates were not left out. I would try to connect the date of birth of a person, and if the person is late – their death dates just to understand the prophetic significance if any.
I longed to know what God wanted to do in the lives of people. I wanted to break into things and go beyond this realm. It was all pride.
I felt nothing was holding me back, after all, all authority had been given to me and I had power to break into places, heal the sick and raise the dead! I tore down all the strings that were put on me by the leadership to help me. Their teachings and counsel on times and seasons was seen as an opposition by me. “How dare you try to stop me from doing the will of my Father?” I felt everyone who tried to talk me out of my exploits was working for the devil irrespective of whether you were a pastor or a leader in church.
Then it progressed to me beginning to see things and people the way I was not supposed to see them. I began to see my pastor as God. I faintly remember calling him ‘father’, like ‘Father God’. Why?Because I coveted the calling and the authority of God in his life. I believed he was the one to reward me after I must have done all things under his authority and . I pictured him as God and I, his son.
The Crux
One day, while the leaders were having a meeting in the manse, I barged into their presence as I thought it was time for me to come and get my reward; just the same way I would have gotten my reward from God. “I have worked, I have served, I have suffered, and so I must be rewarded! Nothing should hold me back or stop me from going to my father’s presence!” These were my thoughts. That was why I pushed the door open and interrupted the meeting. Even until this time, I wasn’t still seeing that this was pride.
Do you know that I even concluded that even the devil himself, or the most powerful demon could not hold me back. I completely disregarded all the teachings in church about spiritual warfare, and the lessons from the book ‘Needless Casualties of War’ by John Paul Jackson; about attacking and trying to pull down principalities and spiritual forces. All I wanted to do was to appear very powerful and take control over the earth!
After I barged into the meeting, I began to say things that seemed very prophetic about the new batch of leaders being twelve in number. I was also perceiving pastor Ita as God the Father. Each time pastor spoke or asked me a question, I would call him ‘father’ before responding. I said quite a lot of things which I cannot fully remember now. At the end, pastor prayed for me and I was taken to the meeting hall which happened to be in the same compound as the manse. Pastor gave me instructions to read some Bible passages.
During that period, it felt like I was switching between two realms. I felt so powerful, even felt I was the Lord at some point! I didn’t know this could be the beginning of insanity. I remember one of those days, I literally left the church hall I was in and ran under the rain to my house which was some distance away just to go and pick a book. I don’t recall what the content of the book was but it was just strange the way I ran out under the rain. It was in this season I got to understand that some of those mad people on the street actually feel they are the normal ones, and we, the onlookers are the crazy ones. Because that was how I felt! “These people don’t understand me. They don’t understand the power that is at work in me. They don’t understand that I am anointed and I was made for this – to be powerful”.
I came to understand that insane people feel different, and can’t understand why you are not like them. They feel you’ve not transcended and that you don’t know what they know because in that state, they usually hear things – whispers, voices.
I thank God for saving me from pride. I thank Him for my pastor who was there for me, and the leadership of God’s Lighthouse. I was prayed for again after some days by Pastor Ita and the leaders during a Prophetic Intercessory Team (PIT) meeting . He prayed for God to show me mercy and prayed from Psalm 131 without me even telling him anything. He got to know that what was happening to me was rooted in pride. Psalm 131 is very short, with only 3 verses:
“Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound for me.”
“Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with his mother. My soul is even as a weaned child.”
“Oh Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever.”
The whole event was my own doing as I was busy concerning myself with great matters and things too profound for me; trying to do things I wasn’t sent to do or ready to do. The whole episode, from my barging into the meeting, lasted for about 7 days before I became fully conscious of myself.
Out of Timing
Another aspect of my story is being out of God’s Time. I believe God loves me and has a plan for my life; I also believe He would have me do His will. But, it wasn’t time for me to be in the church leadership yet. It wasn’t time for me to start acting like a ‘son of God’. It wasn’t time for me to start talking about things beyond me, or strive to gain understanding of deep things about the ages to come. I wasn’t supposed to start knowing the prophetic significance of people’s birth and lives! All because I wanted to be relevant.
At that time, I didn’t know that all the things about leadership that I was picking was for a later time, during my service year the following year. I went for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) program, which is a mandatory one year program for University and Polytechnic graduates, where I joined the Nigerian Christian Corpers Fellowship (NCCF). By the grace of God, I was made a leader – the Zonal Coordinator. This meant that I was in charge of the fellowship at the Local Government where I was posted to. I had people under me and I was to lead them in different capacities including handling things around the family house.
I was out of time trying to become a leader in the church group one year before instead of allowing God to work on me for this other service.
God has helped me, someone who always wanted to do things, to pull down, to tear and destroy, to carry fire! To be hailed as the man of God with the power to shatter the kingdom of darkness! God had to teach me humility first. Indeed nothing takes God by surprise. I came to find out later that on one of my birthdays, pastor actually did a study on humility.
In the course of my journey with God, I’ve also learnt how God talks. It doesn’t always have to be a voice from heaven. At the time, I was more or less like someone that wanted to just hear a voice from heaven saying “This is my beloved son”. I remember when I had my baptism and was expectant to hear a voice just like after Jesus’ baptism. I was thinking that everyone was going to hear a voice coming from heaven that day, proclaiming me as a beloved son and a powerful man. I didn’t know all those things were pride, but I understand better now. I thank God for his mercies upon my life. I thank God for teaching me to hear Him in the different ways He speaks.
Most especially, for helping me understand that everything that happened to me that period was not all evil in itself. It was God teaching me, pruning me, and trying to yank things out of my life so that I can be an obedient child, walking in His own times and seasons for my life and not trying to set out before time or despising the authority he placed over me.
My lesson – don’t be prideful because it can open the door for many other things to have access into your life; do not despise the authority God has sent to help you.
Hope in the Lord always.
