Few things depress like a Monday morning. You wake up at 6am or earlier, and before the day has even scored a minute you are ready to call it quits with the daily shit shoveling  that you call your job. But whether you like it or not, you gotta get up and get going. No one’s gonna shovel that shit for you. Sometimes you enter a wishful state and think there has to be something that could inspire you to jump out of bed and go to work. Something that could make Monday morning a great day for you.

Monday morning looks more cheerful when you have a gun in your hand.

Well, that’s where a Sunday prophecy comes in. If you attend  any of the churches that sprang up after the 80s especally in the jackboot grind of the military era, you would be very familiar with the concept of blessings and prophecies for the weak–or the week–whatever cheers you up. I came across a recent version from a Sunday newsletter and it looked something like this.

Wow! It also comes complete with one prophecy for each day.

Starting with Day 1—Sunday. I can’t really explain the harvest part for you. On the figurative side of things, I have no idea what you’re supposed to be harvesting—it is quite unlikely that your boss would pay you a double salary—no matter how much you fast, pray, exercise faith or wish otherwise; and since you have no outstanding debts to collect—well, the only way you could harvest any money would be by stealing it. On the literal side, if you’re like me, you haven’t done much agricultural work since those secondary school farm days, and there’s therefore no corn picking to be done.  Personally, the only “planting” I’d done since then had been of a “wild oats” agricultural nature and I was not eager for an harvest. Hell, no!

Wild oats. You really do not want to harvest “that”.

Day 2–Monday morning. Check out that lovely prophecy again. What more could you want (and need!) than for God to destroy all your enemies? You may feel  a twinge of guilt because of all that “love your enemies” business in the gospels, but since this is a church document, it must be OK to destroy your enemies–just this once. In fact, whole denominations are built on that premise of destroying your enemies. By fire. So, just relax and destroy this one enemy. And on Monday morning,  you have only one enemy.

He’ s your worst enemy. Your second worst enemy. Your only enemy. Your implacable enemy. The point is: he’s your freaking enemy!

Your “fire” prayers are answered and someone makes an ice cream pile out of your boss’s car on his way to work. Your boss himself has to take a diversion to the hospital instead to fix a broken leg. Just the leg, you know—its not as if you’re keen to have blood on your hands. But all the same, excellent way to begin the week.

‘Nuff said.

Having sort of destroyed your boss on Monday, Tuesday sees you still at work, still bossless, and then you begin to understand the meaning of the words: “Your time for labour is over, its your season of favour.” Hello brother, its holiday at work! So you roll up your sleeves and spend all of Tuesday checking out the posts you missed on this blog and clearing your much ignored Facebook notifications. Twice. Just in case you missed a poke or something. Also, as a good citizen, you now have time to catch up on the latest news and current affairs.

“Are you serious? Prezzo made it? Prezzo of all people?”

Having slacked throughout Tuesday, your boss still in hospital and your work much ignored. You discover that you’re way behind your deadlines on a lot of projects. You’re just about ready to enter panic mode, as you ponder what would happen if your boss comes in suddenly, when you remember Wednesday’s prophecy: “The favour of God will cover all your weaknesses and inadequacies.” Word. As if to confirm this, a colleague steps in and asks if there’s anything she can help you with. You smile and say, “just one small work like that”.

Gotcha, sucker!

By Thursday, you are so relaxed that you don’t even bother to close your internet browsers anymore. You just lean back on your chair, legs on the table, earphones plugged in as you doze off in the AC and, as your Thursday prophecy assures, you wait for your little efforts to bring great returns.

“Wait, what? That’s not how the prophecy reads!”

Well, by the end of Friday, you an congratulate yourself on a good week. The favour of God has definitely been locating you, and seeing as you are an expert on how to take care of your Saturdays, anyway, we can skip the whole turning your name to ‘Favour” part. I mean, Favour sounds like the name of that girl that used to sit in a corner in your primary school. You don’t need that now.

You can bet there’s a “Favour” seated somewhere there.

Besides, your friends and folks won’t be cool with such a radical change of name–unless you’re from certain areas in the South-South of Nigeria. Otherwise, scratch that last prophecy. Your current name is good enough.

And so friends, you’ve managed to survive one week by the power of prophecy. You’ve prayed against your boss, and destroyed your enemies, done no labour, covered up your weaknesses and inadequacies, exerted little effort in your work, relied solely on favour! What more could you ask for? The anointing is really strong in you. Now that you’ve got your Monday morning motivation, and you are ready to begin a second week working on those same principles. Except that—

Seriously? You did not SEE that coming?