God's Response to Rejection

Fact is, rejection hurts.

It does not matter how big or small, borderline catastrophic or seemingly insignificant. Emotional pain seems to turn physical like a fifth-grade bully punch to the gut. Like a knife wielding its way into the intimate corners of your beating heart.

We often ask ourselves why our emotions get the better of us when we did not get invited to that party “of the people we are not even friends with.” Or when feeling ignored in a conversation with a significant other who is “just having an off day.” Or when a friend you valued forgot your birthday “even though you do not often talk.” Perhaps you are like me, fighting yourself with reasons why you should not be so hurt when certain “small” events occur. Or perhaps you have experienced society’s “valid reasons” for feeling rejected. Not getting that incredible job opportunity. Not marrying whom you thought you would. Not getting into that one university. Experiencing friendship loss due to miscommunication or hurt. Your dad or mom never coming home.

Maybe people have whispered to you much of your life to “grin and bear it” or to “never show weakness” when something even remotely painful happens to you. And so, you have tried. Well, I hope I am not the first to tell you that you are wrong.

Rejection was never God’s intention, and it is not His design. I believe the reason rejection hurts us so incredibly deeply is because we are not made to be rejected. Our makeup was designed to be in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), eternally loved and accepted by the benevolent Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (who have been eternally accepting one another in a perfect three-in-one love relationship). In addition, we were designed to live in perfect unity—without an ounce of rejection—with other human beings. Our makeup essentially rejects rejection. We are not made for it. The moment Adam and Eve broke God’s one command, they began rejecting one another. If you do not know the story, you could check out Genesis chapters 1 through 3. Essentially, Adam and Eve began blaming each other for the collaborative mistake they made against the Lord. Instead of walking in unity and restoring relationship with God through asking forgiveness, they chose to throw themselves into individual self-preservation by pointing fingers in fear and anger. Thus began the cycle of rejection we still experience today. We know it too well, too intimately.

Do not be embarrassed when you feel hurt by someone regardless of the size of your emotional opponent. You were not meant to ever have to feel that way. Ever. So, when feeling downcast in your soul because of rejection, remember the One who spanned time and space, the invisible to the physical, the immeasurably strong to the limited for your sake (Philippians 2:6-8; John 3:16-17). God’s desire was to reunite you to Himself in an eternally accepted and loved relationship (Galatians 3:26-28). His will is that you know intimately His immeasurable love and oneness (Psalms 136:26; Romans 8:39). In your most heightened pains of rejection, beseech the Lord who can remind you of your boundless worth. No, I cannot promise that the sting will immediately stop or that you will never return to that state of pain. We are humans living in a broken world who operate in the norm of rejection every day, we will be affected by it. Remember, 1) Jesus truly knows how you feel. He Himself was rejected by His society, the very religion He grew up in, His government, and His most beloved friends and family while He was taken to the cross to die (Mark Ch. 14-15). 2) Jesus resurrected. His return to life (yes, real blood pumping, oxygen breathing life) proves that pain and suffering is not the end of the story (John

11:25-26; Matthew 28:2-7; Mark 16:5-7; Luke 24:13-32, 36-43; John 20:19-25). God’s plan is to make new what this world has broken (Revelation 21:1-4). Including you. God sees into the depths of your pain and dives right into it, for He knows pain well (Hebrews 4: 14-16).

Seek solace in the Man who experienced the worst form of rejection possible so that pain is not the fullness of your story. There is hope in an empty grave. He’s beginning to make things new.

Becca Thompson

February 7, 2024