I still remember clearly today the sense of shame that overwhelmed me the last time I saw a picture of myself and a colleague at the inauguration of Rhema Chapel Oluyole, my first pastorate. With my head full of hair that had not been touched by the barbers in months, a shirt tucked into casual pants and enhanced with a tiny neck tie that did not belong to that brand of shirt at all. I was the embodiment of grinding poverty and I hated my appearance. A few years had made a lot of difference and I just couldn’t relate with how I saw myself in the picture. I never knew it was that bad.

Another occasion would evoke similar emotions. The first eight years of my life were spent with the rest of our nuclear family in Ndayako, a suburb of Mokwa (a small town in middle belt Nigeria). We moved to Ilorin (a much larger town) in February 1977. Here comes 1993 and my parents were back in that village selling imported frozen fish products and my wife and I went visiting them. Everything looked more primitive than ever in Mokwa, but I was not prepared for our visit to Ndayako. As we made our way to the little primary school where I had started elementary education, my hands began to tremble behind the wheels as I beheld the smallness of my two-classroom Alma Mather that had grown to a four-classroom one.

‘I didn’t know it was this small’, I whispered to Jumoke a few times before I fell into a momentary silence trying to fathom how God could have raised Victor Adeyemi who was pastoring over two thousand people at the time. I was not ashamed this time but amazed and overwhelmed with disbelief.

I remember preaching behind the wooden pulpit that I was given by my Senior Pastor for the start of my first pastorate. This particular Sunday, about two months into the life of the church, I was forced to stay behind a pulpit that did not contain me for several weeks because of my shoes. It had been down a month earlier when the weak leather detached from the sole. While the cobbler had stitched it to the sole, the threads had worn out from use and I had no alternative. Out of shame, I hid behind the pulpit to preach like a ‘house on fire’. I was ashamed of my shoes, but not of the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ. I tell these stories today because they are realities that could still make me ashamed if I do not know better.

‘But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.’
Hebrews 11:16 NKJV.

As I read about the saints in Hebrews 11, who we refer to as the ‘Faith Hall Of Fame’ today, I read that God was not ashamed of them. He was proud to be called their God then like He is proud to be called our God today because of our faith in Him. If we are not ashamed to identify with a naked Saviour on the cross of Calvary and the foolishness of a message that is increasingly unpopular among the affluent and the intellectuals of today, God is also not ashamed of us.

The things that cause shame among humans do not cause shame in the sight of God. He does not look down on us like human beings do. They value you based on your net-worth and your accomplishments. They are ashamed of you because you cannot dress like them, drive their type of car, live in their kind of accommodation or own their type of possessions, but God is not ashamed of you.

Through the trials of an Enoch who was a lone righteous voice in his times, to the foolishness of a Noah who was building an ark when there had never been rain nor flood to the childlessness of Abraham and Sarah, God was proud of them because their faith transcended their realities and they took God at His Word. They also looked to heavenly realities and throughout their lifetime looked forward to the afterlife.

These people were everyday people like you and I. They had lots of reasons to be ashamed but learnt not to give in to negative emotions. Only be ashamed of sin and bad behaviour. Things like sexual immorality, greed and impurity ought not to be once named among us (Ephesians 5:3). Aside from such things, let us hold our heads up high in the reality that shame belongs to pathetic, fallen humanity and not to us. Hold your head up high!

Victor Adeyemi