When I was in my early twenties, I worked part time as a tutor for middle school students. At the time, I had a crush on one of the English teachers. I did my best to keep my admiration a secret so as not to be unprofessional, assuming that this teacher would never be interested in one of the tutors who came to support his class. Soon I found out that he had started dating another tutor, the one who I thought was so beautiful, confident, and funny. I often compared myself to her and even more so once I heard this news since I told myself that he had “chosen her over me.”
Whether this was the case or not, I’ll never know but this experience brought to the surface what I valued in a person, and what I found security in. This information was a great starting point for letting the Lord begin to reshape my values, desires and sense of self, one that doesn’t change based on someone’s acceptance of me.
Since then I’ve experienced much more painful forms of rejection and have yet to be unaffected by its lingering sting. The degree of pain is usually based on the level of value placed on the person or opportunity who did the rejecting. Many of us are all too familiar with the pain of being unchosen, unwanted, or overlooked. Thus, gift and rejection being in the same sentence might strike you as an oxymoron. How can one of most people’s biggest (warranted) fears be seen as a gift?
Rejection, and all suffering for that matter, is like a magnifying glass. It exposes what you have put your hope, identity and purpose in. You get a mirror to your heart and are able to see with better clarity the things that are often buried underneath self-deception or misplaced security.
Awareness is the first step to change. You can’t grow unless you are first aware of what needs to change. The Holy Spirit reveals to us what areas we are blind to or stagnant in. His power helps us make these changes and gives us the perspective we need to see rejection as a gift.
So whatever kind of rejection you may be currently experiencing or have walked through, here are seven surprising gifts:
1. The fear of rejection loses its power.
There’s something so freeing when you realize that one of your worst fears has manifested and yet by God’s grace you lived through it (and even better grew because of it). The fear no longer has the same power that it did before. You are able to take greater risks and approach new situations with a confidence in the Lord and His power at work in you. If He sustained you through one of your worst fears, then he can sustain and grow you in anything. Looking back at God’s faithfulness gives us courage to face the unknown. He gave me victory and helped me in (fill in the blank based on your own story) and therefore He can give me victory and help me through this current rejection.
2. Recognition that my identity is not tied to this person’s approval or interest in me.
Jesus was perfect and yet still rejected by those He came to save. Rejection isn’t a reflection of personal deficiencies but speaks more about the other person’s values, preferences or pursuits. The temptation is to personalize rejection and let it confirm deep-seated lies about your value. This is actually a blessing in that insecurities can surface and the Lord can skim them off. The truth is that you are fully accepted, chosen, and loved by God and no one can take this from you. As a child of God, not a single ounce of your worth is depleted or minimized by someone’s rejection.
3. The strength and character built through adversity makes it better that the rejection occurred than if it had not.
The path to a stronger character requires sacrifice and suffering, but the fruits of the Spirit produced in your life are worth the pain. Rejection isn’t something anyone asks for but when it happens, embracing the disappointment leads to a more fruitful life. Romans 5:3-4 says, “Not only that but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” Speaking of hope, that brings us to the fourth gift of rejection.
4. Rejection is a redirection to the greatest and most sure, unfailing hope that can be had.
Rejection can feel like the ground you’ve been anchored into has been pulled out from under you in a rapid, blow to the gut kind of way. It’s a disorienting experience where reality feels like a slap in the face. When what you hoped, prayed, or anticipated for for so long goes nothing like what you imagined you’re left in a world that you don’t want to live in. The disappointment can feel paralyzing. You realize how much weight you put on this one thing working out.
This exposure is extremely humbling and painful. There’s nothing like being brought low that begs the question, “What and who am I living for?” “Where does my hope lie?” In the most painful of rejections and disappointments, the grace of God has allowed me to pray, “Lord, I put my hope back in you. May you be my sure foundation, the one I look to for provision, guidance and strength through this disorienting experience. May you ground me and keep me secure in your love.”
“We put our hope in the LORD; he is our protector and our help. We are glad because of him; we trust in his holy name. May your constant love be with us, LORD, as we put our hope in you.” – Psalm 33:20-22
5. Greater compassion and empathy for the hurt and rejection that others experience.
Pain either makes you prickly or tender. I’d rather choose the latter. I’d rather my familiarity with pain in all its forms make me tender and soft towards others. Our culture equates softness with weakness when in reality it takes an enormous amount of courage to fight cynicism, bitterness and blame. When you are well acquainted with the sting of rejection, you can feel the hurt of another’s rejection even if it’s not the exact same as yours. You can empathize with a person who after ten years of marriage was rejected by a spouse who chose to break their vows. You can hear the story of a single mom who has been left by the father of her children and bear witness to her pain. You can offer comfort in a way that you couldn’t if you had never tasted the bitterness of rejection yourself.
The amazing thing about empathy is that you don’t have to experience the exact same kind of pain to be able to feel that of another’s. You only need a taste and that usually provides the knowledge and experience to translate it to any situation in which pain is involved. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is 2 Corinthians 1:2, “Comfort those with the comfort by which you yourselves have been comforted by God.” There is redemption, meaning and purpose in our pain. We can better relate to and empathize with our fellow neighbors because of our familiar acquaintance with rejection.
6. Becoming more like Christ – identifying with the rejection that He experienced and His heart for those who continually reject Him.
If anyone knows what it feels like to be rejected, it’s Jesus. Isaiah 53:3 tells us that, “He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, [and] acquainted with deepest grief.” Jesus was betrayed by one of his closest friends and followers. He was rejected by His own people and the very ones who were supposedly most connected to God. All of his disciples fled in His hour of greatest need and Jesus even asked His Father, “Why have you forsaken me?” This level of rejection, loneliness and pain is truly unfathomable.
There is deep comfort in knowing Christ understands the pain of rejection better than anyone. To think He loved us so dearly that this was all worth it to Him, including the continual rejection from those who hear the gospel yet still turn their backs on Him. Our experiences of rejection give us the opportunity to identify with the suffering of Christ and develop a heart for those who reject our perfect Savior.
7. Rejection develops a mind that is fixed on eternity.
Deep pain creates a longing for eternity like nothing else. We are here for such a short time and keeping the end in mind puts the degree of our pain in perspective. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
My mom has compared this to childbirth. The pain can feel unbearable but when you have a beautiful baby before your eyes, every ounce of suffering becomes worth it and before long you don’t even remember the pain of childbirth. All of our pain will soon be forgotten and what we do keep is our deepened capacity for love. A professor in college used to say, “The only thing you take to heaven is your sanctification.” The present rejection is shifting our eyes to a future glory and the hope of heaven when all will be restored.
