If there is anything I hate I have tons of experience with, it’s rejection. Ick. Yuck. Ugh. I despise it. I have always been sensitive and emotional. You can only imagine. Yet not only has the Lord been teaching me to handle it with trust in Him and love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness for those who reject me, but I have learned to be thankful for it. How so?
God has used it to draw me ever closer to Himself and to deepen my relationship with Him, to refine me, grow me, teach me, test me, purify me, and cleanse me, and to be more sensitive, compassionate, kind, loving, merciful, and forgiving toward others including those who go through their own rejection as well as toward those who reject me. Sometimes I am rejected by people He wants to protect me from and who are not part of His perfect will for my life. I am thankful to the Lord for all the good He brings through rejection in spite of how yucky it still feels.
I have faced rejection for many reasons over the years including as a result of proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord and living for the Lord according to His ways.
What I am most thankful for concerning rejection is how to combat it. By turning to the Lord and His Word, by receiving and experiencing God’s love, and by showing and sharing His love and forgiveness with others. Ultimate answer? God and His love!
When facing rejection, I encourage you to turn to the Lord and to the Bible!
Here is some encouragement, but the Bible is filled with tons and tons more!
“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” 2 Timothy 3:12 KJV
“Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.” Luke 6:22-23 KJV
“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” 1 John 4:16 KJV