The Weakest Link⛓️

He was a pastor of a growing church. God had called him into full time ministry a few years after completing his PhD. Not that he wasn't spiritual, but things were not just going right around him. His church's growth was as good as stagnated, with only just forty something people showing up on Sundays. His wife had been having miscarriage after miscarriage after the birth of their second son. And his first son was always in and out of the hospital. There seemed to be no progress in his life at all. He knew something was wrong somewhere, because things had not always been like this. He once was a celebrated pastor who got both local and international invitations to minister. Money didn't use to be a problem and the word "miscarriage" wasn't even in his dictionary before. Something was definitely wrong.

 He prayed and fasted for twenty days for God to show him where he had gone wrong.

One day he was sitting leisurely on the veranda, thinking about his problems when he fell into a trance. 

He saw a short but very strong chain. The chain was silver in color and looked very new. But the last link of the chain was brown and rusty. The chain was wrapped around a fat pole and it held the pole for a few minutes, before it eventually snapped and fell to the ground, broken.

 He pondered on the revelation all through the day and eventually had to settle for midnight prayers before he could understand what God was telling him. Again, he fell into a trance and heard a voice saying, "the strength of a chain lies in it's weakest link." 

He understood the revelation after that, but his concern shifted to what the revelation had to do with his life and ministry. 

His second son who was seventeen years old, walked past him the next day, strode to the door and called out "Dad I'm going out."

He nodded his response and dismissed the boy, but something caught in his spirit. 

He thought to himself, "when was the last time I asked this boy where he was going to?" Standing up, he followed his son quietly to the garage. 

"Hello babe," he heard his son say into his phone. "Yeah, I'm on my way to your place already. Sorry I'm running late. Just needed to figure out where my old man hid his money this time "

He furrowed his brows in confusion from where he stood behind a pillar, watching his son. What was his son talking about? His son had not asked him for any money.

"Hope you told Ikenna to bring the stuff? E don tey wey I get high o." He heard him laugh.

The pastor was still confused about what his son was saying, so he allowed him to go to where he was going and retired into the house himself.

 When it was eight in the evening, he called his family for the evening devotions. His wife came around with his first son but his second son was nowhere to be found. He asked after him.

"He's not yet back dad." His first son told him "He won't be back until eleven or so."

"What?" The pastor exclaimed. "Eleven? Where did he go?"

His first son looked uneasy, as if getting ready to tell a lie. 

"Don't you even think of lying to me, young man. Where did your brother go?"

"He went to a his girlfriend's house." The son, gulped. "For a party..."

The news hit him like a slap to his face. His seventeen-year-old son had a girlfriend? And since when did he start attending night parties? 

"How long has this been going on?" He asked his first son again.

"Since you started travelling for ministrations two years ago."

And then it all started to click. Pieces of his puzzle started coming together to form the picture God had painted in his revelation. 

That night, he waited in the sitting room for his second son. But nothing prepared him for the drama he was about to witness.

Around 12:30am, his son stumbled into the house, drunk and reeking of alcohol. His shirt was torn in different places, his left cheek was bruised and he had blood under his bottom lip. 

As his son dragged himself up the stairs, he watched, too mesmerized to say anything and heard the Holy Spirit tell him, "That's the weakest link in your chain. That, is the legal ground the devil is using to afflict you."

I Peter 5:8 "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:"