Rejection

 

Everyone wants to know that they are wanted. There is not a human being who does not share the desire to be loved.

Many people are victims to rejection. Some have the worst experiences with rejection and even till today struggle with a need for acceptance.

Maybe you can relate to a man in the Gospels named Matthew.

Matthew was an outcast. Like many tax collectors, they were the scum of society. They were labelled as traitors, and hated by countrymen.

Matthew understood rejection.

Like Matthew, many rejects glare through the crowds and see themselves as lost among the sea of faces. They feel unwanted and even fear if they were to suddenly die, no one would care.

Matthew receives a visitor. I want to imagine Matthew looking down at his counter, just briefly burying himself  from watching the burning eyes twitch of the people whom came to pay their dues to Caesar.

But he finally gazes up at his visitor and sees Jesus.

Jesus was climbing in popularity. Once a common carpenter from Nazareth, was the great teacher and healer. He has supernaturally raptured a multitude of followers, but today He is standing at Matthew’s tax office. At that moment, I imagine he whirl himself around and has his back against Jesus for sheer embarrassment.

“Jesus?” “What does He want with me?” “Oh please not Him, God! I don’t want to get rejected from Him!”

Rejection for many of us is so common, that the natural thing to do when you counter someone is to just push them away in order to save yourself from a potential painful rejection.

But this visitor doesn’t leave. While His followers whip questions at Him: “Jesus, why are we doing here?” “You can’t possibly want to talk to this guy?”

My mind’s eye imagines Jesus never lost His gaze on him. Matthew even knew Jesus was looking at him. Then Jesus says two words – two words that would change this man’s life forever.

“Follow me.”

I share this story, because it’s message to the people like me who have suffered rejection This is a story of acceptance.

Here is Matthew whom we can call public enemy number one. No one wants him. Yet Someone wants him Jesus.

Jesus accepted Matthew before Matthew ever met Jesus. Jesus doesn’t even give Matthew time to prove himself and win his favor. He looks at the tax collector through his eyes, into his soul and says, “I want you.”

(He brings Matthew into His special 12. Talk about acceptance!)

At the corner of the darkest chasm of your heart where you harbor all the scarred memories that has made you feel so numb to life around you. To the place where only hate gives you affection and loneliness accompanies you. Three words can steal the night of your hollowness and birth the light of hope:

Jesus wants you.

He doesn’t want something from you; He simply wants you. He loved you before you were born (Psa 139:13-17). He loved you while you wandered away from him (Isa 53:13; Rom 5:8).

I and every victim of rejection wants to know that they are loved. And there is One whom loves you “with an everlasting love” (Jer 31:3 NKJV)

He found me at the back of church. I was too young to understand  that you can be a perfect person – throw away your very identity and people will still reject you. He came to me at a time where I felt I had to pretend to keep a friend and never accept myself.  There in the words of an orator, I heard the sweet words that Jesus wanted to be my friend.

No matter where you are, “there is no pit that He is not deepest in”. He will find you and show you true love.*

I really wished that Mark, the writer to this story, would have detailed everything that followed after Jesus’ invitation; but all we have is:

“…So he arose and followed him” (Mark 2:14).

Matthew left his tax office and never looked back. He found acceptance and he embraced it.

We can leave our fear behind and find acceptance in Jesus.

We don’t have to feel unwanted anymore. Jesus loves us. He wants us! He accepts us for who we are.

Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” (Revelation 3:20 NKJV).

Give Him a chance: Let Him take you where you are and have Him cradle you in His extravagant love.

*Quote by Corrie Ten Boom, Holocaust survivor and motivational speaker.