REJECTION.  It happens to all of us.  Rejection starts early in life when as a toddler we don’t get the toy we want.  We don’t get to touch the stove that is so inviting.  We are prevented from going downstairs  and seeing the other parts of the house.  We experience rejection of our desires early in life.

As we grow and develop, we experience rejection by not being picked on a particular athletic team that we so desperately wanted to play on.  We aren’t chosen for a play we tried out for or choir we auditioned for.  We want to go with a guy or a girl to prom and we asked but they said NO or we were hoping to be asked and weren’t.  REJECTION.

As we grow into adulthood, we continue to experience rejection when we want to go to a particular college and get the rejection letter.  We graduated from college and apply to various jobs and get the rejection  from potential employers who chose someone else.  We fall in love with someone only to find out that they don’t have the same feelings for us and experience the awful pain of breakups in romantic relationships.  We may get married only to find that our mate that we fell in love with has fallen out of love with us.  Rejection is part of our life from beginning till end.

Yesterday I was reading a story in the bible of someone who was truly rejected.  His name is Jephthah and here is his beginning story.  “Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute. Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away. “You are not going to get any inheritance in our family,” they said, “because you are the son of another woman.” So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a gang of scoundrels gathered around him and followed him.”  ‭Judges‬ ‭11:1-3‬ ‭NIV‬

How painful to be rejected by your half-brothers.  They had the same father, but a different mother.  He was ejected by his own kin because his mother was a prostitute.  He was driven away from the father that he loved and forced to build friendships with rejects.  Scoundrels.  His friends had experienced the same rejection that Jephthah had experienced.  REJECTION

What happened next is very interesting.  Israel had to do battle and didn’t have anyone to lead them into battle, so they came to Jephthah and asked him to be their knight in shining armer.  The very person who had been forced from their tribe was now being asked to be their leader.  He responded that he would go and fight for them if they put his as king which they did.  I wonder what Jephthah’s brothers were feeling when he came back as the leader of the nation?  Fear of REJECTION?  I  don’t know as it doesn’t say, but I do know there were some strong emotions.

Rejection can be a powerful tool to move us forward with determination and endurance if only we allow rejection to work in a positive way in our lives.  On this journey, rejection will come.  Look at rejection as God’s way of developing qualities in your life for a future purpose.

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