He Showed Me The Keys Before I Needed Them — A True Life Miracle -By Joe Dauda

When I was finding my path as a young man (many years ago) I went through a brief but tough season that would have resulted in starvation. 

I was living in a 3-bedroom bungalow owned by a friend whose family was in the UK. This friend had gone to either Lagos at the time or some other country. I can’t remember. But I was sharing this bungalow with another friend of his. We stayed in different rooms, each of which was en-suite. I can’t remember the details of this story but the guy I shared the bungalow with (let’s call him Mr K) had a girlfriend. I often thought she was of the cantankerous sort but I never voiced my opinion. I just worried quietly that Mr K was going to marry a “trouble maker” as we refer to such women in Nigeria. I soon had a taste of how mean this lady could be. My theory is that she was a key influence for what Mr K did to me — and I stand to be corrected.

Things were tough for me and it was no secret. Mr K knew it — because we shared the same bungalow — and he knew I did not have ready options. He was also broke at the time but his option was to eat in his girlfriend’s house or they go out and she spends. The girl’s mother had a shop (raw foodstuffs) and I think she was liquid to an extent. By the way, Mr K was a university student — nearing graduation — in the same university I myself used to attend.

One day, I ventured into the room of our host — the third of the 3 rooms in the bungalow. I was in search of something to read and there were several books in that room in a makeshift library. As I was flipping pages, picking and dropping books, and generally ransacking the library, I saw a pair of keys between two books. I didn’t think about those keys: I only noticed them and continued my search for something to read. God had just prepared to save me from starvation; but, of course, I had no idea at the time.

A few days after, I noticed Mr K bringing lots of foodstuffs to the house. Because he had to pass through the lounge (parlour) I saw him and he knew I saw him. He stuffed his room with supplies and, whether I wanted to or not, I must have allowed myself dream of better days ahead. Surely Mr K will share this food with me, in view of the dire situation he knew we were both in.

However, my hopes were brutally dashed. Mr K suddenly traveled out of town with his feisty girlfriend — after securely locking the door to his room, with all the foodstuffs tucked in.

I couldn’t understand this. But then, what right did I have to feel bad? After all, the foodstuff wasn’t mine. Up till today, bad as he may have been, I don’t believe Mr K would’ve left me in the near-starving situation he knew I was in without dropping just a little of that foodstuff: not all; but at least some. So I believe it was Madam wife-to-be that instigated that cold and mean-spirited abandonment.

I can’t explain why I couldn’t just go back home to my father or call any of my two elder siblings to bail me out. I guess I was too independent-minded to think of calling family members to ask to be saved from imminent starvation. 

As soon as Mr K traveled, the countdown to my starvation began. Things were already set to get out of hand and the worst day seemed to have coincided with his departure. There I was, alone in a large bungalow, with an empty kitchen, an empty stomach, and food locked up behind a door I could clearly see but could not access. The design of the door was such that breaking it down was not an option; neither did that idea occur to me. In spite of suffering keenly, I still had discipline in my character and I had dignity. So there was no temptation to break down the door. 

Tick tok tick tok 

The hunger pangs began to set in. I don’t know how many hours or days I fasted. Could have been 2 days or 70 hours: I have no idea.

I made one desperate move to collect foodstuffs from a nearby shop (to pay later) but was rebuffed.

When I began to feel extremely weak due to sheer hunger, I suddenly remembered the keys I had seen some days ago. Something in my spirit made me know for a fact that the keys I had seen were spare keys to Mr K’s room. Apparently, our host had kept them between those two books in his makeshift library just for safekeeping.

Hunger is powerful. 

Without minding what I will tell Mr K (and Margareth Thatcher by his side) when they returned, I made a dash for the keys, found them, tried them on Mr K’s door, and, of course, the door opened up without any stress. With a firm understanding that this was a divine miracle, I quickly cooked beans and ate first before bothering about how I was going to face the music — eventually.

To cut the long story short, a few weeks before the difficult situation began, I had started having issues reading properly and wanted to go to the National Eye Centre in Kaduna State for check up. For this reason, I had asked my friend in the United States for help and was told to wait a bit. It was after I had started attacking Mr K’s foodstuffs that the wait for the American support expired. My friend sent me some dollars for my eye treatment and, before leaving for Kaduna, I was able to replace Mr K’s supplies. He knew I had used his stuff and knew I had replaced more than I had taken. So there was nothing to yap about. And that was how that episode ended. Mr K and I reassembled in Abuja years later and his embarrassment was keen, especially because he had become a pastor at that time. Of course I have forgiven Mr K and we are on talking terms till today. 

When I say I trust God, it is stories like the one you just read that explain that trust — and there are several of such stories. My theory is that God takes His children through certain situations to give them a gift — the gift of trusting Him. God knows He is rich and powerful: but because you don’t see Him, you naturally have a hard time relaxing and allowing Him take care of you. Making you trust Him is thus a gift because that trust then serves as a currency. It gives you access to God. 

Today, the greatest asset I have is my trust in God, developed through the crucible of tense experiences that I probably would not have recommended for myself — such as the experience with Mr K and Madam Thatcher. I know I’m blessed and have been opportune to interact with several high profile persons in the course of my work: but I have come to consider my relationship with God as my greatest wealth. Luckily, this relationship is not subject to the weather, or the political condition of my country, or the value of the naira, or the latest For Your Eyes Only security report submitted to the President. This relationship can survive any vicissitude of life, no matter how drastic.

When the beast (Antichrist) begins to pressure the people of God to either worship him or suffer/starve, I pray that the trust I have developed in God over time will enable me exercise the faith of Elijah and expect divine provision — whether in the desert or the wilderness or anywhere. It is a good idea for you to have such rocky trust in God too because everything you know that keeps society predictable is about to collapse. That’s how the Great Reset you have been hearing about will be enacted. When President Joe Biden says “Build Back Better” he is referring to the rebuilding that will take place after they have destroyed the current system of things. Even as many people busy themselves watching Big Brother Naija and trying to have a good time, the destruction is going on. The war in Ukraine is part of it; the “mysterious” destruction of many food processing plants in the United States is part of it; attempting to curtail the agricultural export of the Netherlands (one of the biggest food exporters in the world) is part of it; the pandemic is part of it; several other sinister things are going on to bring the world to a point of urgency like you have never imagined. And there is nothing you can do to stop this plan. You can only prepare. God will not even intervene to stop it because He wants Satan to do his worst — attempt to force all human beings to worship him — before stepping in with the 7 last plagues to punish those who choose to worship him by worshipping the beast. The second coming of Jesus Christ (after the 7 last plagues) will be to take away those who refused to worship the beast and remained loyal to God. I pray you and I will be part of this latter group. But you have to start learning to trust God now. That’s how you get extra oil for your lamp. Remember the story of the 10 virgins? They were all waiting for the second coming of Jesus Christ but some just didn’t have enough oil (that is, trust in God, faith in God) to make it. You will have enough oil in your lamp in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth!

May God have mercy on all of us.