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Ever been rejected? Me too. Some rejections are harsh. “Shut up, kid. You’re stupid and ugly;” “I don’t love you anymore;” “I want a divorce;” “you’re fired;” and on and on. Subtle rejections can hurt also. A quiet shunning, a disapproving stare, no more phone calls from a "friend.”
Do they hurt? Of course. They’re supposed to hurt. Don’t you know that those who reject you get a kind of perverse pleasure in it--because they’re paying you back for some intended or unintended failure, some slight, some perceived offense by you that warrants payback. But they’re not the only ones who can incorrectly perceive offenses. We also can view another’s life choice as intentionally harmful, even if it has little to do with us.
If there are enough perceived or real rejections there can also be open wounds that contaminate our adult relationships. It’s like this: failures generate failure. Failures, (those perceived by us to be our own fault and failures we have truly or falsely assigned to others), tend to form patterns which repeat themselves over and over in our lives. We get angry, stuff the anger in order to get by, get depressed because anger turned inward always produces depression, and then we explode at the slightest annoyance, because Vesuvius is just below the surface. Then we wonder how our lives got in such a mess.
I’m not talking about non-Christians here. Oh no. Christians are the best at this, because Christians are not supposed to carry resentment. Haven’t you read Matthew 5:44:
"But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who
hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”
Yeah, right. So we stuff what we believe to be displeasing to God. What lies we tell ourselves. Actually, we stuff because we’re afraid of what others will think of us, or because we don’t want to face the truth about ourselves and our unholy reactions.
Well, if that’s where we find ourselves, what can we do about it? How can we cross over into a life of peace and victory? I’ve got good news and bad news.
First the "good news." There is deliverance from this “rejection complex.” But we have to change our mindset and allow the truths of Scripture to rule our hearts.
What does Paul say in the very familiar verse, Romans 8:28?
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who
are the called according to His purpose.”
You’ve got to be kidding. All things? Yep, all things. Even the rejections we’ve suffered are under the sovereign Lordship of Jesus Christ.
But how can this be? I thought that being a Christian meant God was going to fix everything so that our lives were dynamic expressions of His glory and blessing. You say, “I’ve suffered more rejection as a Christian than I did before I came to Christ.” And that is as it should be. Haven’t you read John 15:18-19?
"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. "If you were of the
world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you
out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
“But it’s not the world that has rejected me,” you say, “it’s other Christians.” To this I believe you are making an unwarranted assumption. You are assuming that just because another person carries the label “Christian,” that he or she, in fact, is a true believer. Not necessarily. And even if they are believers, they can be damaged goods and worldly to the core. Paul called these “Carnal Christians.”
C.S. Lewis had it right when he wrote that our future--that which we’re becoming through all the events and choices in life--reinterprets and transforms our past. That is, even the bad stuff that happens to us, if it leads us into the good and the Christ-like, will be interpreted by God as good in the end. Conversely, if we gradually are transformed into evil people, all the good things that happen to us will be interpreted as bad, because we didn’t let them lead us into the good. It’s just a applied rendering of Paul’s concept in Romans 8:28.
What does all this mean? It means that we are never more than a repentance away from having all of the life events we’ve experienced transformed and interpreted as good . "Even the rejections?" you ask. Yes, even the rejections. When we begin to understand that everything that the Sovereign Lord allows into our lives is there for our good and our growth, then even the rejections we suffer will have a sweetness to them. We can let go of the pain and embrace the joy. Remember the story of Joseph? After all was said and done, Joseph said to his brothers, “You meant what you did for evil, but God meant it for good, so that He could save.”
Now the "bad news." If you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, there’s more to come. In Matthew 5:10-12 Jesus promises,
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, For theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil
against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward
in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
John 16:33 "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the
world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
But even the bad news is transformed and reinterpreted, because there is a reward from Him; a reward of His presence, His righteousness and His power, now and “into the ages of the ages.” Now isn’t that really good news?
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