The Day of My Death — Aribisala

*Says God kills before He makes alive

In his latest book, The Day of My Death, Dr. Femi Aribisala provides the most eloquent chronicle of the armed-robbery attack on him and his family over 29 years ago. During the attack, one of the robbers pointed a gun at the author and fired, leaving him with a bleeding gunshot wound and in dire need of immediate medical care.

This attack could have resulted in lasting psychological trauma. But it became a life-transforming experience, leading Aribisala to describe it ironically as a “divine contrivance.” His narrative on the attack is a theological antithesis to mass-market Christianity. It shatters many of the beliefs a large number of Christians are sold on, like the idea that becoming a believer is a sure path to success, good health, security, and prosperity. For many Christians, the existence of difficulties in a person’s life is an indication of underlying sin.

However, one of the first lessons Aribisala drew from the robbery incident is how distinctly different God’s perspectives are from man’s reality. According to him, “if I had not been attacked, I would not have been introduced to the peace of God that passes human understanding.” He goes on to say the attack—which took place when he was 41 years old provided an opportunity for him to hear the voice of God for the very first time in his life. The voice told him, “nothing is going to happen to you.” But soon after, Aribisala was shot. While he was bleeding from the gunshot wound in his leg, the reassuring voice said nothing was wrong with his leg.

Since God was not interested in what was going on in the physical—whether it be the gun-toting robbers or the excruciating pain from the blood-soaked leg—Aribisala concludes that man’s reality must be redefined to align with what God says. Building on this spiritual insight, the author proceeds to write one of the best chapters of the book, paradoxically called, “Blessing of Trouble,” where he dispenses with the popular Christian notion that troubles often denote the absence of God in one’s life and circumstances. Aribisala insists that God often “allows things to get very bad before making them very good.” According to his thesis, “Everything about the kingdom of God is worked out in contradictions.” Instead of seeing failure as an abomination, we need to accept it and see it as a necessary ingredient for success. God uses death to give life and brings joy out of sadness. Indeed, God “kills before He makes alive.”

The Day of My Death further confirms Aribisala as a master storyteller. It is part-memoir and part-theological study. It is compelling and revelatory, seamlessly weaving together the author’s life-changing experiences with biblical narratives. The book delivers an uplifting sermonisation on the true meaning of salvation, giving fresh significance to the urgent message of Jesus Christ in a way that is honest, unconventional and practical. 

Contrary to popular Christianity, Aribisala provocatively believes “true Christianity is a death sentence.” In telling his own story, the author says he was killed on that fateful evening on 26 December 1993 along the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Road in Lagos. His personal encounter with Christ spelt the death of him. “Accepting His offer of salvation would mean my life was over,” Aribisala writes. “For one thing, it was the end of his career as an international relations scholar.

As a doctoral student at Oxford University in England, Aribisala was a real idealist who declined offers to work for top Western institutions that headhunted him, stating he wanted to return to his fatherland and contribute to changing its politics. In fact, on his return to Nigeria, he spent his early to mid-30s working in the highest echelons of government, including being Special Adviser to the Nigerian Minister of External Affairs, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi; and being appointed the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), by then-military President, Ibrahim Babangida. (Aribisala turned down the appointment.) In one of the anecdotes Aribisala told us—not from this book—he and some of his contemporaries and friends, including Prof. Pat Utomi, used to spend their intellectual pastime deliberating on how to improve governance outcomes in Nigeria. But after meeting Christ, those energies were sublimated to higher moral issues.  

To be sure, the writer was required to abandon not only his high-flying career, but also his successful business. He quickly realised that his self-righteousness and principles, which had made him “contemptuous of Christians,” were not compatible with his growing relationship with God. All his predilections came crashing down. Writing with self-deprecating humility and candour, Aribisala stresses the necessity of relinquishing one’s life—as in pedigree, ambitions, self-importance, likes and dislikes, etc.—as a precondition for gaining the true salvation that Christ came to offer. In essence, if becoming a believer does not lead us to experiencing what the author calls a “living death, “then we have not met Christ.

Living death is the process of being beat down and humiliated, experiencing loss and coming to the point of total dependence on God. Human beings like security and certainty; but God wants to take believers to the point where we may have nothing to lean on, so to speak; nevertheless, we have the absolute assurance that He is with us. When we get to this point, we will have nothing to fear—not even death in the physical sense.

Undergoing a living death becomes a requirement for living the life Jesus has to offer. Aribisala writes: “we must be prepared to enter the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings” for us to have first-hand experience of “the power of His resurrection,” adding, the “victorious life is after death.” This means if we have not redefined life after supposedly becoming believers, then we have not met the real saviour of life. If life—and our celebration of it—is narrowly defined by our achievements and the acquisition of material wealth, then Jesus is not yet our saviour. “It is one of the major tragedies of contemporary Christianity that most so-called Christians are living a lie,” Aribisala writes, maintaining the true gospel necessarily brings reproaches and shame.

In the character of God’s prophets in the Bible, the author bemoans the prevalent moral apathy in Christendom. But as he rightly emphasises, the goodness of God as expressed through His enduring mercy and forgiveness when we repent, Aribisala makes an assertion that troubles me quite a bit. He says we should “accept ourselves with our sins and inadequacies.” Surely, Aribisala is not saying that God condones sin; but that God knows our weaknesses and he accepts us at the place where we are, provided we continue to strive for His righteousness. Still, my concern is that such a statement could encourage complacency among Christians.

I personally never make the excuse that God understands whenever I commit a sin, especially when it is a sin I really should have long overcome. Or so I think. Could it be that I am making perfection the enemy of the good—in this case, the progress I am making in my pursuit of the righteousness of God?

Regardless of my unease on the above subject-matter, The Day of My Death is a gripping read from cover to cover. This fourth iteration of Aribisala’s Kingdom Dynamics book series stands out in its ability to empower readers of all stripes to connect scriptures with new meaning, helping them on their transformational journeys with God. One thing is certain, Aribisala’s detailed account of his personal encounters will strengthen the faith of readers, apart from enabling everyone to learn and understand the language of God and His definition of reality.

You cannot but be stirred by one of the anecdotes in the chapter on “The God-Who-Forgives,” where Aribisala narrates the story of how he had disobeyed God, later repented, and experienced dramatic forgiveness. Soon after seeking God’s forgiveness, He asked the Lord to help him to get a taxi at a location in New York where it was usually difficult for him to get a taxi. As he walked outside the establishment where he had visited, the Lord told Aribisala to turn left. He did, and sitting in a parked taxicab a few metres away was a man, beckoning at him. Once he got to the car, the man asked Aribisala, “Where do you want to go?”

*Martins Hile is a sustainability strategist and editorial consultant.