The earliest time I remember being called pastor was in junior secondary school.

They'd tease me with the title, mock me with it, despise me with it and revere me with it. Although I received an honorarium for being the "most beautiful" and "pastor" of the class in JSS3, the morality that earned me the latter often came under brutal tests.I filled in for Medicine in my JAMB and Microbiology was second choice. My results were perfect to earn me Medicine at Nigeria's first university. I always wanted to be a doctor. "The slots are full" I was bitterly told. So I settled to be interviewed for Microbiology, a common destination for those who are deprived of the opportunity to wear white coats in the wards. The labs receive them.

I had planned to 'cross' in my second year.

I showed up at 8a.m in suit and tie for an interview that didnt begin until 12noon. My turn came at 3pm. I was already cranky and famished.

Only a faint smile remained on my jaw. The first question rattled me

"Why do you want want to read microbiology INSTEAD of Medicine"

A thousand thoughts rammed into in my head. I needed the admission so badly; into this alternative course even. I didnt want to stay any more time at home.
How do I convince them that I wanted Microbiology rather than Medicine when the contrary is true? How wise was it to say that the course I had waited several hours to be interviewed for is not what I wanted? Those gray haired men won't be pleased with the truth. Neither was I pleased at the prospects of lying either. This would ruin the unblemished cloak of my reputation as "pastor."
I spoke at length how important microbiology is to science, to medicine and to me. I sunk my answer in heavy diplomacy; weaving it around some lies and some truths until I ended up forcing an approving nod from my listeners.

Such a smooth speaker I was!

I was given the admission. And like all of my schooling experience, people never stopped calling me pastor.Who would have told the cleanest truth in my shoes? Who would forgo an opportunity to be an early graduate based at an instance of reckless honesty? Very few people would. Maybe no one.But I learned more about my humanity that day after the interview than at any other time before it. I was much in need of Grace as a "pastor" much like anyone else.
There are no men naturally immune to the invitation of depravity. Where our morality is concerned, it yields in surrender in a moment of typical and rational weakness.

Our titles in church are sometimes a fatal smokescreen. But all in all, they must provide for us the brutal truth that we ALL need God; not one of us less than each other.