If you were not able to detect the sarcasm, or if you do not have a significant other, rest assured that flowers and candy are not the ultimate expressions of love. Unfortunately, we are completely inundated with ads that promote otherwise.
1 Corinthians 13 is commonly known as the “love chapter.” It is quoted often, particularly at weddings.
Grab a Bible and take a good look at this passage. Make a list of exactly what this passage says love is.
Now, take a look at your list and re-write it in order of what is easiest for you, ending with which is most difficult.
Once you’re done with that, take a moment just to reflect and think about some things that you can do to improve on the more difficult choices.
Now, we’re going to switch gears a bit.
The definition of rejection is the refusal to accept, acknowledge, use or believe. Other definitions include to throw out as useless or worthless, to discard.
A reject, in the form of a noun, can be defined as something (or someone) rejected as imperfect, unsatisfactory, or useless.
Imperfect. Unsatisfactory. Useless.
Those words sting.
But not as much as what is left unsaid: a reject is unloved. Rejection is the contradiction of love.
Rejection is painful. It creates deep wounds and leads to fear and unhealthy coping strategies. But, those aren’t even the main problems. The main issue is what allows us to actually feel the rejection, which is the fact that we have fallen into the trap of basing our identities on the approval or disapproval of others.
It doesn’t take too many times of someone telling you you’re no good at something for you to start believing that. It also doesn’t take too many failures to create a fear of rejection that prevents you from trying anything out of your comfort zone.
Fortunately, this stigma that has so infiltrated our culture is not truth.
The truth is our identity as Christians is rooted in Christ. Our worth is not based on our external accomplishments or the validation we get from other people. And we couldn’t even make it that way if we tried. God is not impressed by us, and that is a good thing.
Often we think God will reject us if we don’t play the part we think we’re supposed to. If we are Christians we withhold the full extent of our struggles with sin from Christ and other Christians because we feel they won’t accept us if they really knew the truth.
We hide the truth that we did a lot more than kiss our boyfriend or girlfriend when they came over to study;
Or the truth that our computer didn’t actually crash when someone walked in the room, that was just the best excuse we could come up with for shutting it off before they could see what website we were looking at;
Or the truth that we’re not really concerned with what our neighbors do, as long as it doesn’t affect us;
Or the truth that we don’t really care anything about helping others or serving the poor, we just want to go on a mission trip so we can travel and it adds points to our awesome Christian resume.
What we forget is that Christ has already seen what we have done, He knows how we feel and even what is left unsaid in our hearts.
Sometimes, though, when we recognize that ultimate truth we feel shameful and pull away from Him.
We’ll talk more about how this plays out in our lives in the next post, but here are just a couple of questions to guide your reflection until then:
Reflection
· What is the worst part about feeling rejected?
· How have you coped with feelings of rejection in the past?
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