OVERCOMING THE SPIRIT OF REJECTION - Part I
This series is not for everybody – but it is a spiritual Rhema and
a Word of encouragement for someone. For
quite a while, you have experienced a pattern of pain in your life. It
seems that, although you have tried your best to be open and accepting of others,
your unconditional love is not always reciprocated. It feels like you are ignored, excluded, or
simply tolerated by people that you expect to GET YOU, that is, to understand
what you are all about. Somehow, they fail to SEE YOUR HEART, that is,
who you REALLY are and where you are coming from.
Some of those people (perhaps even close family or friends) might
have LABELED you, using unforgettable words that are soul piercing and
perplexing. They SEE you in one particular way – through their own
perspectives and life experiences – and since they are SURE that you must
really be the person they have pegged you to be, they not only place you in a
permanent pigeon-hole, they communicate their narrow and restricted image of
you to others. All of this hurts you deeply – much more than you are
willing to admit or talk about to others. So, what can you do?
Before delving into suggestions of proactive and positive
strategies for handling REJECTION, I want to share some wonderful news with
you. YOU ARE NOT A REJECT! YOU HAVE BEEN “ACCEPTED IN THE BELOVED!”
(Ephesians 1:5-6) This means that OUR FATHER has already ACCEPTED YOU as a
prime candidate for grace and glory. Your simple requirement is to ACCEPT
HIS SON and to cut a constant covenant with Him. Your growing intimacy
with HIM will produce both the fruit and gifts of The Spirit in your life.
My friend, GOD has very positive plans for you, i.e. “plans to prosper
you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
To be effective with this devotional, I must be totally
transparent. To that end, I will elaborate on something that is
particularly personal and painful for me. Since birth, I have struggled
with a profound speech impediment. Today, when others hear me teaching
and preaching, they typically have difficulty visualizing this because GOD has
been so good, gracious and transformational in my life. But my childhood
struggle to speak clearly was (and is) a monumental force in my personal
development. How can I explain my feelings about this to you?
SPEECH is such an integral part of daily life. It is the means and
mechanism for communicating our desires, dreams, pains and pleasures. NOT
to have the capacity to communicate in a manner where one is absolutely SURE that others could/would
understand produces an internal emotional struggle of monumental proportions.
So even though I was raised in a wonderful Christian home, within a
positive cocoon-of-love, surrounded by marvelous parents and tremendous
siblings, somehow I FELT LESS THAN
OTHERS. Whenever I needed to say something twice or thrice to be
understood, I FELT SUPREMELY REJECTED. My young mind was incapable of
processing the possibility that this might be a temporary problem. And
believe it or not, even now when I am speaking, I am SOMETIMES still UNSURE if people clearly comprehend the
words that I am speaking! It is important to note that others were not
rejecting me or classifying me as someone who lacked the ability to
speak. In truth, I was rejecting
and negatively classifying MYSELF!
There is another important phenomenon to highlight here.
Feelings of inadequacy NEVER occur in a vacuum. In other words, we
human beings have the tendency to filter ALL of our life experiences through
what we emotionally perceive as the WEAKEST LINK within ourselves. For
example, if as a child I was selected last in a pick-up game of basketball, I
interpreted it as REJECTION OF ME, when in reality I was a rather mediocre
basketball player. Later, I discovered that I could excel in football and
in track and field, but those early ‘rejection episodes’ on the basketball
court (greatly amplified by my sense of insecurity about my ability to speak
clearly) were difficult childhood experiences.
Kingdom Principle Number One: SATAN LEVERAGES OUR FEELINGS OF
INADEQUACY TO CONTROL OUR ATTITUDES AND ACTIONS, AND TO PRODUCE LONG-TERM
NEGATIVE EFFECTS.
There is both good news and bad news to be extracted from this
first Kingdom principle. The BAD NEWS is that ALL of us have SOMETHING
that precipitates an ongoing struggle within ourselves, whether it is a major physical
challenge, the tragic death of a loved one, a traumatic childhood experience, a
sense of inferiority or superiority, academic difficulties, or whatever one’s
individual circumstance might be. Indeed, that is the nature of the human
condition.
The GOOD NEWS is this: While Satan’s agenda is to intensify our
emotional struggle in order to produce long-term damaging issues, GOD’S AGENDA IS TO TRANSFORM AND USE OUR
SHORTCOMINGS in ways that enable us to systematically grow stronger and
wiser. He designs blessings in apparent
obstacles – so we can assist others with similar life experiences, thereby
becoming key participants in the Kingdom of God. Know this: To offset any PERCEIVED MINUSES, God sovereignly
grants UNIQUE PLUSES, both for
our present sense of balance and for our future achievement. My friend, have
you discovered yours yet?
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