If you have had experiences of rejection, especially during the early years of your life, it can have a major effect on you that you carry throughout life. I started experiencing rejection at the very young age of around 4 or 5 and it continued for many years. Class mates, neighborhood kids, family members, and so called friends rejected me for my weight, my clothes, my personality, my education level, my poor choices, who I chose to date, and for my faults and imperfections. Certain experiences that I endured caused more of the root of rejection to grow in my heart until eventually that was all that my heart knew.

When we are rejected from people over and over it can cause us to reject ourselves because we gain a mindset that says “something is wrong with me” or “I am not good enough.” It can cause us to become people pleasers, have approval addiction, not out to accomplish a dream, Or we may try to hide our true selves from the world. We may develop a form of self protection from rejection by having nasty attitudes, by staying to ourselves -becoming a loner with no personal relationships- or by convincing ourselves that we don’t care about anybody or anything. We may even form the mindset that God himself rejects us. Fear of rejection can completely derail our lives, by avoiding all of opportunities that are sent our way, In all of the greatness that God wants to offer us. It can cause us to not believe in ourselves or to give up at anything that shows the smallest sign of being difficult to accomplish or may not workout. It can keep us from pursuing dreams, goals, wants, desires, and needs. When we fear rejection we tend to live a life of settling for the bare minimum in and of life just to stay away from the possibility of rejection.

When I read the scripture about Jesus being rejected by so many people but he still became the Savior of the world it gives me a new outlook. If he could become as great as he did and accomplish his God given purpose then I can too. If he could still love and accept himself than I can too. If he could not let being rejected by so many crush his self worth and value then so could I. Then God led me to some truths that also helped me a great deal with one of them being that no matter what you do or who you are at least 10% of people are not going to like you. We will not like or approve of everybody. And that is OK. Our worth in value does not lie in how many people accept us. God created each of us uniquely, exactly as He wanted us to be. And there is a good chance that if someone rejects us they are not a person that we need to be involved with anyways.

We need to look at rejection from all angles because it may turn out to be a blessing or a lesson that we needed in order to grow or to get away from something that is not in the best interest of our well-being. If it is a rejection from a proposal on something that we are trying to accomplish and we really feel that God wants us to accomplish it then we must not take the 1st rejection as it is not mean to be and not continue to try to accomplish the goal. We have to use discernment in those type of situations. Sometimes we have hear 100 no’s before we will hear a yes but we will learn something with every no that we get. If we are turn down for jobs or any other opportunities that we go after chances are that rejection is a blessing from God because he has something better in store for us down the road. We can’t let rejection be a downfall. We can use it as a positive motivator, a reminder that Jesus went through the same thing and look at how great he still became. And as far as being rejected by others if they don’t accept us just as we are then they are not the type of people that we need to be involved with anyways.