Rejection hurts.
I remember once being in the middle of a job application process. I had just finished an online interview with an assessment team, when I noticed a new email in my inbox from one of the assessors. I was surprised to see an email show up so quickly, but I thought, “Maybe I wowed everyone in the interview to the degree that there was no question about offering me the job. A no brainer.”
I clicked the mouse, the email opened, and then my head sunk. There was no job offer. Instead, the assessment team had accidentally sent me the document that contained all of the raw notes from the most recent interview and the ones previous. The notes spoke for themselves. “His answers are rambly and uncompelling, as mentioned in previous assessments” and “Struggles to articulate any clear sense of direction.”
I can’t tell you how much that situation stung. But it wasn’t anything new. Rejection always hurts, no matter what I am being rejected from. It always makes me squirm; makes me want to disappear. And yet, I have come to realize through the years and over the course of many rejections that God can and does use rejection in my life to do a myriad of beautiful things. These days, even though rejection is still uncomfortable, I find myself almost eagerly anticipating it because of what I know God is going to do through it and how He is going to be glorified by it.
If you think that sounds crazy, then allow me to share some the ways that consistently uses rejection in my life for my good and His glory.
1. Rejection reminds me that God’s opinion is the only one that matters.
Acceptance can be like a drug. The more you get it, the more you need it. You increasingly long for applause and embrace, and at least for me, the desperate pursuit of it is only broken when I am rejected. Rejection forces me to stop the pursuit and reflect on it. And that reflection, when it is led by prayer and carried out in Scripture, leads me every time to remembering that I am unconditionally accepted by the God. He is the only one with the power to truly condemn me, and if He accepts me, then who cares who rejects me!
As Paul writes in Romans, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8.34-35).
2. Rejection gives opportunity for the fruit of the Spirit to flourish in my life.
Rejection never creates me in an immediate affection for the person doing the rejecting. I don’t instantly want to take that person out for a nice gourmet meal. I want to share some carefully chosen words with him/her before I march away. When I am on the receiving end of rejection, there is no one in that moment that is harder for me to show love to then the rejector. So, what an opportunity to practice the love of God! Acceptance doesn’t give you that opportunity. It is easy to love the person that accepts you. Jesus himself said, “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them” (Luke 6.32). But to receive the rejection and in turn love and serve the one that rejected you, that requires the Holy Spirit in you. That produces for you a reward in heaven and leads to your growth on earth.
If we are willing to see the opportunity and rely on the Spirits power, then rejection can be the tool that God uses to foster and grow the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives
3. Rejection reveals to me what I am worshipping that is not God.
One way of identifying idols is to simply pay attention to the things that make you sin in anger when you don’t get them. If you are rejected from a job and it makes you walk away cursing under your breath or leads to new dry wall work in the basement, then there is probably an idol there. You are worshipping something as ultimate. It could be the job itself; it could be people’s applause and acceptance, or it could even be the power and authority that comes from the job and the applause. Whatever it is, if its absence causes you to sin its probably something you are convinced that you need.
John ends his first letter with these words, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5.21). If rejection is an accelerated way of identifying the idols in our lives so that they can be removed from our lives, then maybe we ought to say, “Bring on the rejection!”
4. Rejection puts me in the company of Christ.
It is not that Jesus is not with me when things go well and I am accepted, but there is a different kind of nearness and kinship that I find when I experience rejection, since Jesus Himself was rejected. John writes in the introduction to His gospel, “He [Jesus] came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1.11). In other words, the God of the Universe knows what it is like to be spurned and to be refused. His own people turned their backs on Him right from the beginning of His ministry, and it eventually climaxed at the cross.
In as much as we experience rejection that is not a result of our own sinful choices, we find ourselves in the company of Jesus. He understands it. He comforts us through it, and He relates to us in it, because His own people did not receive Him. Jesus knows rejection.
5. Rejection gives me sympathy for others.
Not only does Jesus relate to us in our rejection, but we relate to others. Everyone is rejected at some point, and probably at many points. And everyone, after being rejected, is looking for comfort in their rejection; looking for someone who can understand and who can give them some shred of hope. Well, who better to do that than the Christians in their lives, who have also experienced rejection. More then that, Christians who have found through their rejection that Jesus is better than whatever they were rejected from; that as Jesus said to the apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12.9).
Rejection gives us the ability to relate to and sympathize with the rejected; to weep with those who weep (Romans 12.15). It gives us the opportunity to learn what others are growing through, and it opens the door for sharing with them the Gospel of the rejected Christ.
6. Rejection leads me to prayer.
Rejection often initially creates in me a lot of internal turmoil. I start asking why God would let this happen to me. Why would He allow me to be rejected? I begin questioning what His will is for my life, and wondering if maybe I had misheard Him. I wrestle. And how do I wrestle? In prayer. I talk to God. I petition Him; I call out to Him. I share with Him and confess to Him. And eventually through my wrestling and processing, I always find my back to praying “Lord, your will be done.”
The disciples once said to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11.1). I have made the same request many times. I think that rejection has been one of Jesus’ consistent answers to my request. I don’t plan it, it is the near jerk reaction. Rejection leads me to pray, and prayer leads me closer to Jesus.
7. Rejection creates in me a fearlessness.
As terrible as rejection can be, it also becomes for me a case-study of the unbelievable faithfulness and goodness of God. Every time I am rejected, I get to witness and experience firsthand the nearness God, the care of God and the power of God. I get to watch as He sustains me, provides for me, and gives me the strength to endure. I always end up after each rejection more sure of His faithfulness to love me and look after me. And the result of that realization is an increasing fearlessness for the Kingdom of God in the face of men.
If God is faithful to walk with me through rejection, then who is there to fear? More than that, what risk is there that is not worth taking for the Kingdom of God if it would serve to advance it? Instead of running from rejection you begin expecting it and welcoming it for the sake of the Gospel. You begin sounding like the Paul, “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1.10)
Rejection still hurts. Its still not fun. And yet, these days I anticipate it more than I try to avoid it. I am convinced that there are few more powerful tools in the hands of God to shape me, mould me and glorify Himself through me. So, let me simply end by encouraging you in this way: Don’t miss the incredible potential that your rejection holds. The next time you experience rejection, don’t underestimate what God might do with it.
