By now many of us must have read some prophecies for the year 2018.Whether they are genuine,fake,assumptions,permutations only God can say.One thing is sure God cannot contradict Himself.He is not a man that He should lie!

My concern about some(not all) of these prophecies is the fact that they lack what people can do to either avert the bad ones or bring to pass the good ones.The only solution many of the ‘prophets’ give is for people to pray seriously:Pray,pray and pray!

No PLAN,No STRATEGY,No ACTION!

Anyway,lets study the Bible and see the number of prayer sessions Joseph organised in Egypt to avert the 7years of famine!

Gen 41

Let me just bring out the relevant points there.

1)God revealed what He wanted to do in the next 14 years to a pagan king! Prophecies,dreams and revelations are not the exclusive rights of some selected men of God.You will be surprised that a sitting President irrespective of his/her religious affiliation may have a better revelation about the country than the most respected man of God in the country.

Many wait  to hear what God has for them for the year through popular/holy men of God but God doesn’t usually operate in such ways.Remember ordinary Balaam’s donkey saw a vision of angel meanwhile Prophet Balaam didn’t!

God can reveal to you how your career or business,or academics etc is going to be in 2018.Yes…You!

2)God gave the dream of what was about to happen  to the presiding King and not Portiphar or even Joseph! God did the same to Nebuchadnezzar. Please pay attention this year to dreams that are related to your sphere of influence.The interpretation of the dream,prophecy or vision, most of the time, is related to or tailored along the position you occupy e.g as a father(head of the house),wife,president,governor etc?

3)Most prophecies,dreams and visions are purely figurative and should not be taken literarily and you should not be sentimental about the interpretation.You can imagine what would have befallen the land of Egypt and by extension Israel if Joseph had interpreted the dream literarily.

Figuratively: Seven fat cows=Seven years of abundance

Seven lean cows= Seven years of famine

Interpretation: Seven years of abundance will be followed by seven years of famine.

If it were today,African sentiment about witchcraft would have been added and you would have heard: “Seven witches  are after you (King Pharaoh) this year,and you need to fast until you become lean like those cows you saw and pray very well so that you can ‘swallow’ those powerful(fat) witches from your political opponents!Pray now or repent now or else you will be swallowed alive.You are warned.Thus says the Lord!”

 Let’s shift our attention to how Joseph proffered solutions to the dream of Pharaoh.

Gen 41:32-37

“The reason the dream was given to Pharaoh in two forms is that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God will do it soon.”

Joseph told Pharaoh that the years of abundance and famine are inevitable! If a prophet should tell you this what will be your reaction? Many of us will just accept it like that…”After all God has firmly decided to do it!”

But do you know that this revelation didn’t fully come to pass? There was only seven years of abundance! Despite the fact that the matter was already firmly decided by God,there was no famine of seven years.

Why?

They PLANNED!

Yes! They planned to avert what God had firmly decided and they succeeded!!!

How?

Joseph taught them how to avert the negative prophecy:

And now let Pharaoh look for a discerning and wise man and put him in charge of the land of Egypt.Let Pharaoh appoint commissioners over the land to take a fifth of the harvest of Egypt during the seven years of abundance.”

 See fantastic STRATEGY.

 “They should collect all the food of these good years that are coming and store up the grain under the authority of Pharaoh, to be kept in the cities for food.”

What an ACTION!

This food should be held in reserve for the country, to be used during the seven years of famine that will come upon Egypt, so that the country may not be ruined by the famine.”

How I wish the prophecies for the year could come with clear cut directives like the one above!

How I wish I read something like:

“There will be fuel scarcity by July-Dec 2018,let NNPC,NUPENG etc start planning now on how to avert that and put strategies in place to avoid it.Let them reserve 200,000 litres of fuel every month from January 2018 so that they will have 1.4million litres by July which will be able to cushion the effects of the scarcity between July and December.

Many countries are ‘eating’ what they should save now because the Josephs in those countries are either  interpreting the dreams wrongly or silent!

Many of the prophecies that predicted the ongoing recession failed to warn  the government squandering their foreign reserve as at 2010/11.

Where are the Josephs that can outline ways of averting the economy downturn in 2018? Should we just release negative prophecy and wait under a tree like Jonah to see the evil happens? No we shouldn’t.

Do some men/women of God derive pleasure in the fact that their evil prophecies come to pass? It is disheartening when an evil occurs and the next thing a church does is to start playing the video of where the leader gave the prophecy! Hummm.

Joseph gave Pharaoh pragmatic solutions to his dream and the famine never came to pass.

I wouldn’t know the prophecies you have received for the year:

If they are good prophecies…

Praise God however don’t rest on your oars as if they will just happen without proper planning.That you eat delicious meal in the dream doesn’t automatically translate to physical meal.Wake up and work to live your dream!

If they are negative prophecies…

Praise God the more!

Why?

God revealed there was going to be seven years of  famine in the story you read above yet it was averted,it didn’t come to pass!

God spoke through Isaiah that Hezekiah will die: “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”-Isa 38:1

That prophecy didn’t come to pass.Instead God added 15 years to Hezekiah’s life.

If they say you will die this year,please pay attention to your health! Do regular check up in the hospital,check your BP,blood sugar etc

If they say you will fail your exam,study harder this year,attend classes,be teachable!

If they say you will be poor this year,it is time to brush up your business skills!

If they say  there is accident ahead,please don’t over speed,don’t drink alcohol and drive,check your tyres etc

Use Joseph’s principle :

It states that “if you are fortunate to know that a problem lies ahead,be proactive,don’t be reactive to it!”- Ajimuda 2018

I wish you an impactful and fruitful year ahead.