Those who come for counseling come with a variety of issues of hurt and pain and dealing with rejective experiences and all of us can relate to having been rejected. When rejective situations occur in our lives it hurts and the feelings of rejection can be paralyzing and often prevents us from moving forward in life; we find ourselves frozen in time, fixated on the rejective experience.

How should we process or walk-through rejection from a Christian perspective. Jesus told us that in this world we would experience the trials and problems of life so it’s not a foreign thing to us and this world system is not a friend of the Christian; it’s a place of rejection, and rejection comes in an endless variety. We may feel rejected when we do not get our way; what we thought we had coming. Or maybe you felt rejected recently in the loss of a job, unduly singled out and let go from a place of employment. You felt rejected by a loved one or a spouse because of something they said or did that was hurtful; or maybe a close friend suddenly betrays you and you feel badly rejected and hurt, you didn’t see that coming.

When these rejective experiences occur what is the antidote? What is the solution to rejection? The spiritual antidote to rejection is love. The opposite of rejection is being loved and accepted. Think about it; when we are being rejected it is because we feel the loss of love and acceptance by someone that we care about and so as we experience the love of the Lord and the acceptance of the Lord it can help us to overcome these rejective experiences.

This is the only way to overcome rejection. The reality is that Jesus is the Way; He is the person of Love, and so when rejected I want to encourage you to spend some time with Jesus; even as Jesus did with his Father when he was here in his earthly Ministry. He would set himself apart; he would go and discuss with the Father the rejective experiences that he was encountering; and when we set those times apart and go and allow God to minister to us with loving acceptance, it is a holy recalibration! It allows us to once again to focus on the true reality of life, the Person of Life Christ as our life.

As we receive God’s love and acceptance there is a healing that begins, a healing of the rejection. Think of that place where you converse with the Lord as a healing place; a place where God can take away that rejective sting that you have experienced.

The choice is always ours. We can continue in discouragement having been unfairly rejected or we can look to the one who is our soulless, the One, who is our comfort, the One who is our love and acceptance.

May I encourage you today to live loved, and accepted, and thereby experience Life As God Intended.