Christ the Lord of My Life (Urbana 81)

by Simon Ibrahim

Testimony of a Nigerian Missionary

When in 1969 I became a student at Ahmadu Bello University of Zaria, in northern Nigeria, I resolved that I would never again work with the church - yet here I am the general secretary of an indigenous church in Nigeria. What happened? I based my resolution on common sense. After serving the church for seven years, I left to go to the university. I figured out that when the church consulate heard that instead of going to seminary I was going to Ahmadu Bello University, which is a strongly Islamic university, they cancelled a plan to license me as a pastor. I was happy about that. I also figured out that Jesus served only three years and I had been serving for seven. It was time now for me to have it easy. Of course I attended the Wednesday prayer meetings and Sunday worship. That was the best I could do the first year at the university.

Then came a bombshell. The district church council sent an elderly church pastor to me to ask if I would like to pastor one of the churches part-time while I was a student at the university. I could not understand this. I replied, "You wait until tomorrow and I'll let you know my decision." That night three things happened.

A Bittersweet Day

First, I could not sleep at all because I remembered how I became a Christian and how the Lord took control of my life. I reflected on how I was born and reared in a Christian home after a missionary came into our tribe. As a little child, I was taught to memorize verses and sing songs. But I was also taught not to retaliate when attacked, and that made a coward of me. When one of my schoolmates slapped me and I did not slap him, he would slap me again. Those years were an eternity for me.

Worse yet, in those days Christianity denied me a long list of good food including meat offered to idols, which was the cheapest means of getting a meal in those days. Here I was, a little Christian kid, and I could not partake of such food, except of course in secret when my grandfather took me. Therefore I resented Christianity. If I hated anything as a little boy, it was Christianity.

Then one day I heard that my father was excommunicated from the church. For me it was a great day of rejoicing. To celebrate the occasion, I started to sing non-Christian songs. Immediately my father rebuked me. The following day he summoned the whole family and said, "I am born again; my name is in the book of life. My sins are forgiven. If I died today I am going to heaven. You are not going to heaven unless you repent of your sins and believe in Jesus." A new conflict began in my life.

One day I was so miserable, so unhappy, I climbed a big rock on our compound and viewed the whole village. I wondered, "What is the purpose of life? Why am I so miserable? Where can I find peace?" Someone seemed to tap me on the shoulder and say, "Repent of your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You will have peace with God." I turned around and looked, but I was alone. I descended from the big rock, went inside our house and took out the Tangale New Testament. I read verses on forgiveness, knelt down, prayed for forgiveness and believed in Jesus. When I opened my eyes, I could not believe the flood of joy that came into my life. I could not understand it. Immediately I ran back to the rock. I climbed it and surveyed the whole village. To my amazement it was beautiful.

That night during my university years, I remembered the flood of joy. I said, "How dare I refuse to be a part-time pastor in the church of Jesus Christ?" I began to weep.

God's Guiding Hand

Second, that night the Lord showed me my path of decisions after I became a Christian. I remembered that at the age of nineteen I was admitted into teachers' college, but I was shown a need for someone like me to teach little children in primary school. My teacher used a song to help me understand the need for me to be involved in Christian service right now instead of rushing to college to get a certificate. The song was:

I have nothing to do with tomorrow,
Its sunshine I never may see.
Though today with a plough in the furrow
In the vineyard I faithful would be.

I have nothing to do with tomorrow,
My Savior will make that his care.
Its grace and its strength I cannot borrow,
So why should I borrow its care.

I quit teachers' college and became involved in the vineyard. The Lord showed me something else; I was readmitted to college the next year but the Lord made it plain that he wanted me to go to Bible school instead. I told my father and he approved of it. But all of my uncles became very angry. One of them said, "Son, you are lost if you are going to Bible school." So my father called me and said, "If I die two verses are going to be your inheritance." One was, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well" (Mt 6:33 RSV). The second was, "Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Lk 12:15 RSV). "Your uncles don't understand. All those things they are worrying about if you go to Bible school - God is going to add all of them to you. So you have my blessing. Go to Bible school."

It was also brought to my memory that at the age of twenty-two I resolved never to write to any girl. In those days the "in" thing was to write to as many girls as you could; the more letters you got from girls, the better off you were. But the letters contained many lies. You write to Naomi and call her "darling." You write to Ruth and call her "darling." I could not understand it as a young Christian and felt something was wrong. I told my friends that I was not going to write to any girl. If any girl wanted me to marry her, she could write to me. (In those days it was impossible, because the girls were cleverer than the boys.) For more than a year I never responded to any girl. I was seeking the Lord's will for marriage. To cut a long story short, he guided me to the right woman. And today we have three children.

That night the Lord said to me, "If you could trust me then, why don't you serve me now?" At age twenty-eight I gave up a well-paying job to work with the Sudan Interior Mission. The Lord blessed me richly. But at the age of thirty-four I was saying that I did not want to serve the Lord anymore. I wept bitterly that night.

Who's Responsible?

After weeping, then a third thing happened. It dawned on me that although I was in the university on a government scholarship, God was the one who arranged for me to get the scholarship and be there at the university at his service. When I woke up in the morning, I contacted the elderly pastor and said, "Go and tell the district church council that I will pastor the church part-time." Immediately I took over the pastorate while going to school.

During this time the Lord urged me to open the door of the church for university students to meet there. We decided to invite the leaders of the church and the leaders of Sudan Interior Mission to come for what we called "a meeting with the firing squad" in which we asked them various questions. Of course, as university students we saw lots of problems in our nation, Our society and our community.

Nigeria had just come through a civil war, and we students debated the issues which had threatened to divide our nation. The main thing which concerned us, however, was the future of the church. Anti-Christian feelings were gaining strength, especially in the university. We realized that many of our local churches could not meet the needs of the youth. Also, what was the future of the missions which had brought our parents and us the gospel? Nigeria would never be the same after the civil war, and missions had to realize that they had to adapt to a new day if they were to continue.

Becoming Available to the Church

Several of us Christian undergraduates met after that meeting with the church and mission leaders. We decided that we must be available to the church. In those days government and industry were competing to get university graduates, but we thought the ministry of the gospel was more important than all the prestige and the positions we would get in industry and in government. Today, of those who met at the church, some of us are in full-time church work, some are in government, some are in industry, but we all serve together with God. We realize that all education, including university education, is to be used to the glory of God if Christ is the Lord. Recently a state government sent a team here to North America to recruit four hundred teachers, but to date only three have been recruited. What an opportunity for three hundred ninety-seven Christians! I thank God that he worked in my life so that I was willing to say, "Jesus, you are still Lord of my life." I would have missed out on the drama that is taking place today in the church. There is great excitement because of what God is doing through the church. The church with which I am involved is so committed to cross-cultural evangelism that we see hundreds coming to Christ every year. We have over a hundred couples who are preaching full time in the rural villages. During early 1982 by the will of God we will place a hundred couples in other villages.

Northern Nigeria is culturally different from the rest of the country. There are those who have been raised in Islam. There are two groups who have run away from Islam. The word for one group means "we are running away from Islam." The second means "better dead than become a Muslim." Both groups are coming to Christ in the hundreds. We cannot meet the demands for evangelists for them. The couples we are sending are going mostly to these two groups.

I would have missed this drama if I had refused to obey my Lord. I thank God that his Spirit compelled me to obedience.

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Christ the Lord of My Life (Urbana 81)

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December 27-31, 2009