When I was thirteen years old, I was living with my parents and two brothers in Southern California. Toward the end of Summer that year our family moved to a large city in the Pacific Northwest. I didn’t want to leave our neighborhood, where I had many good friends and was established in my school and sports teams. It was good to be known and accepted, especially as a young teenager. Much to my dismay, about three weeks before the Fall school session would begin, we packed up and headed north.
At that very impressionable age, being accepted by my peers was not only desired, it was also critical to my self-esteem. Not being a ‘type A’ extrovert, the thought of having to make new friends and prove myself worthy of their company was most unsettling. On top of that, I had to adjust to a new school in a new state in a new house in a new neighborhood. I had no friends and little confidence that this new environment would be to my liking. But there I was. There was nothing I could do to change things.
As is true for a majority of teenagers, school life is the center of all activity. It’s where you make your friends and establish your social life. So, starting a new school meant having to break into existing groups of friends and get involved in already established social activities. In my insecure state, this was a daunting task. Will people like me? Will I be good enough? I was about to find out.
The first day of school was not too bad. Most of the kids were starting new grades and classes. So, we were all experiencing some discomfort in the new school year. However, the next several weeks and months proved to be all that I had hoped it wouldn’t be. As a new student, other kids asked me where I was from. Of course, I told them I was from California. It all went downhill from there. It turned out that California was not the place you wanted to be from. At least not with the kids at my school!
That school year was the loneliest nine months of my life. No one liked me because I was from California. I was incessantly teased for my looks, the way I dressed, and for, well, for no other reason than I was not from around there.
Rejection is painful. It’s difficult to face the idea that you are not wanted. We have all faced it. It can come in a variety of forms and from different sources. Regardless of how rejection occurs, it often brings into question your value or worth as an individual. For some, it can be paralyzing. It may bring feelings of shame, sadness, grief, or anger. Rejection can come from family members, friends, and co-workers – even the workplace environment itself. You can experience it when you don’t get a promotion you applied for, when your spouse divorces you, when a friend doesn’t invite you to a gathering, or when your ideas are not valued or are ignored. As followers of Christ, how should we view this assault on our sense of well-being? And how can we find a way beyond its debilitating effects?
You Are Not Alone
It helps to know we are not alone in our rejection. The prophet Isaiah, foretelling the coming of the Messiah (Christ) who is to save the people from their sins, said; “He was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.” (Isaiah 53:3, NLT). In John 1:10-11, speaking about the coming of Jesus as Savior, we read; “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” The gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus’ own family rejected him and thought he was out of his mind! (Mark 3:20-21).
We should not dismiss the impact of the rejection Jesus faced simply because He was the Son of God. He was also the Son of Man. He experienced all the same troubles and trials that any of us face, not from a distance, but “up close and personal”. And because He did, we can come with confidence to Him and receive mercy and grace in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16).
Scripture tells us of many others that were rejected. Moses was rejected by his fellow Jews after he killed an Egyptian. Joseph, the son of Jacob, was rejected by his brothers and sold into slavery. David was unjustly rejected by Saul for simply being a faithful and valiant man. The gospel writer Matthew was rejected by the Jews because he was a tax collector. Each of these characters experienced severe rejection. But each of them also found new life on the other side of it. God was with them all. He was faithful to restore their hope and give them a perspective that helped them overcome their troubles. He will do that for you as well!
The World May Hate You
If you are living a life surrendered to God, and it is your desire and purpose to be an ambassador for Christ, you will experience God’s grace and support in all you do. But you will also likely find yourself on the other end of personal and public rejection. Jesus made this clear; “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19, ESV).
As true followers of Christ we will face rejection. What we say is nonsense to those who don’t believe. So, there is a preconceived bias against us for simply belonging to Jesus and not to the world. To be rejected by the world should be our expectation if we take our calling seriously. To have the right perspective on this we need only look to what Jesus said in his sermon on the mount. He told His followers that they should rejoiceand be glad when others revile them for their reward is great in heaven. (Matthew 5:11-12).
Since rejection is going to be part of our experience in this life, how can we live with it? What can we learn from it? Our greatest comfort and strength should come from the fact that when we encounter rejection we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ. We are walking with God through the upside down, broken world that has been decimated by sin and the evil one. We are not alone. He is with us. (Psalm 23:4). In Romans 8:31, the apostle Paul reminds us that, “if God is for us, who can be against us?” and the Psalmist declared, “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” (Psalm 118:6, NIV). This is the foundation on which we stand.
Can we learn something from the experience of rejection? Absolutely! There is much we can learn about God and about ourselves. Let’s examine this briefly:
- We can learn how to trust God – When our confidence has been eroded from an experience of rejection, we can find new confidence in God’s helping grace. When we learn to trust Him for all the outcomes in our lives, we can find new strength and peace that does not originate from nor is dependent upon our circumstances. We can really come to know the “peace of God that surpasses all understanding” that we read about in Philippians 4:7.
- It gives us the opportunity to examine ourselves – Are we too concerned about what people think of us? Do we invite rejection by the way we communicate with others? Do we have a deep sense of personal inadequacy or unworthiness? Are we too easily offended? Are we able to distinguish between our actions or ideas being rejected and personal rejection? It’s profitable to explore why you feel rejected. Honestly facing the answers to these questions can result in growth and spiritual maturity.
- Accept the fact that everyone won’t love and respect you – Even though this seems obvious to our rational mind, it can be difficult to embrace. We usually think of ourselves as ‘nice people’. Naturally, we think others should too. When we take this view of things, it can be very hard to discover that someone doesn’t like us. Don’t take it personally. Another person’s judgement of you is not the final word. It is not a measure of your worth or significance. Your value comes from your identity as a new creation in Christ. And it’s important you do not pretend an instance of rejection doesn’t bother you if it actually does. Be honest about your feelings without giving them unjustified preeminence in your thinking. To quote professor and author Dallas Willard, “Feelings make wonderful servants, but terrible masters.”
- God will use this experience to help you put on the character of Christ – Facing this kind of personal disparagement with patience and perseverance can lead toward deepening Christlikeness. Being humbled and diminished in such a way can cause us to have the proper perspective of ourselves required to live an abundant life in the Kingdom of God. Jesus called us to deny ourselves and to take up our cross and follow him. “Denial of ourselves is learning to submit all our desires and plans to Him. The abandoning of getting what we want to God is the way to experience abundance in God. It means that, in God’s hands, we are content for him to take charge of outcomes. And in that posture, we make way for Him to live in us and be with us, in order to achieve what is best for us and for others far beyond anything we can even imagine.” (Willard)
In summary, the experience of rejection and its painful effects is something from which none of us are immune. As children of God, however, we do not have to navigate its effects on our own. Jesus Himself is able to sympathize with our weakness and invites us to draw near to His throne of grace to find the mercy and grace we need to be “more than conquerors through Him who loved us” and gave Himself for us. (Hebrews 4:15-16, Romans 8:37, ESV).
