ADVICE WORTH MORE THAN GOLD OR A MOUNTAIN OF CASH ABOUT HOW TO USE REJECTION TO BECOME AN EVEN BETTER, WISER, STRONGER YOU!

 ADVICE WORTH MORE THAN GOLD OR A MOUNTAIN OF CASH ABOUT HOW TO USE REJECTION TO BECOME AN EVEN BETTER, WISER, STRONGER YOU!

For several reasons I am qualified to help people deal with acute and chronic pain. Some acute and chronic pain can be resolved medically. Some pains can go a long way to being resolved with the help of a psychologist. Some pains can be resolved with a hug from mum. But there is a pain that a doctor cannot cure, a psychologist cannot counsel, a mother’s hug cannot alleviate. It is a pain that goes deep – beyond the defences of our integumentary system, our neurological system (including our para-sympathetic nervous system), our muscular system, our skeletal system, our lymphatic system, our renal system, gastro-intestinal system, our respiratory system, our cardio-vascular system, our hormonal system, and our half-share of a reproductive system. It is a pain that wounds: our memory, our sense of self, our estimation of our worth, our confidence, and our ability to connect meaningfully with others (our ability to love and be loved). It is the pain of rejection. It not only effects who we are (our identity) but it also leaches symptomatically into each of these ten-and-a-half biological systems which every human being possesses. I am going to offer all those who have experienced the pain of rejection how they can be healed from its wound, and actually become stronger, wiser, more confident, as a result.

 

A UNIVERSAL EXPERIENCE

We have, or will, all experience rejection. Rejection is painful. But its pain ranges from slight to intense depending why we are being rejected and by whom. Sales-people are trained to process rejection. Not every potential customer will buy. Good sales-people understand this (great sales-people learn from this). If you are a Christian, you and your message will be rejected (Matt. 5:11; 10:14). Mature Christians understand this and learn from it. 

 

YOUR IDENTITY

Your identity does not come from those who reject you—and neither does it come from those who accept you! We are each created by God to belong to a community. This begins with our father and mother – biological family. It is this foundational connection with others that contributes to our identity. Sadly, not everyone is blessed with this kind of beginning. Yet, the truth still stands: Your identity does not come from those who reject you—neither does it come from those who accept you. Perhaps it will take years of processing for some to understand to this. In the meantime such vulnerable people are susceptible to the lie that their identity is defined by who accepts them.

 

THE PROBLEM WITH YOU IS…

In preparing couples for marriage I spend a lot of time with them helping them both to understand how to argue.This involves certain rules including: Identify the issue as the problem, not the person as the problem. This rule also goes to the heart of how to deal with rejection: Don’t confuse rejection based on your lack of abilities with rejection of you. One of the most powerful examples of this is the story of José Hernandez. He suffered rejection after rejection after rejection. But each time, and with great help later on from his wife, he was able to understand that he wasn’t being rejected – but his limited abilities for the task were being rejected. He then made a list of each of the criticisms he received as to why he was being rejected by NASA for their astronaut program and set about to gain each of the skills that NASA said he didn’t have. It is one of the greatest examples I can think of that illustrates how to process rejection in a healthy way.

YOU CAN NOT APPEAL TO EVERYONE

You could be the nicest, most caring, most loving, most helpful person in the world, and still be rejected! Jesus was.

He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
Isaiah 53:3

And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things
and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed,
and after three days rise again.
Mark 8:31

One of the most injurious things you can do to yourself is to begin to define who you are by what those who reject – or accept – you, say you are. Follow Christ’s example instead. His identity, who He truly was, came from His heavenly Father – and so does ours!

 

PROCESSING REJECTION AS THE PATHWAY TO BECOMING A BETTER, MORE CONFIDENT, WISER, STRONGER, YOU

Here are five principles for processing rejection well:

{Read W. Somerset Maugham’s THE VERGER}

There is of course one overarching principle that must also be employed to process rejection properly: forgiveness. It is one of the main ministries of a pastor to help people to firstly receive forgiveness, then secondly to extend it to others. The words of Christ in Matthew 6  which come immediately after The Lord’s Prayer should startle every unforgiving Christian. Sometimes the pain of rejection hurts so much that we forget these sombre words of Christ and the eternal jeopardy they forewarn:

¶ For if you forgive others their trespasses,
your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 
but if you do not forgive others their trespasses,
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 6:14-15

This warning comes from Jesus who has experienced rejection like none other:

He came to His own people, and even they rejected Him.
John 1:11 NLT

May God grant you the grace that you need to process rejection, to offer forgiveness and thereby grow wiser, stronger, more confident and become a better you. 
Amen.

Pastor at Large,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

EVERYBODY IS SEARCHING FOR it

Everyone is searching for it and most people do not know what it is! Those who are searching for it do not know where to look and often look in all the wrong places. The ancient book of Ecclesiastes describes this search and how its main character looked for it vainly in religion, work, pleasure, sex, and even education. The quest for it is additionally hindered because most of those searching for it can not even describe what it looks like — yet, frustratingly, they have a sense that it is something very precious that they have now lost. This feeling is if they have a memory they can not recall. All that they are left with is this gnawing sense that it is now lost and they are now lost without it. What they are unaware of is that their thwarted search is a part of sinister scheme designed to keep them from ever recovering their lost memory and being reunited with it. Just like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth character, Gollum, their ever-present enemy has ensured that are befriended by several Gollum-like friends who continually assure them that nothing is missing, and there is no it. 

But when they sleep at night they dream about it. In their dreams they find it and their sadness turns to happiness; their loneliness turns to the warm friendship and intimate love; their sense of guilt and shame turns to the joy of being forgiven and accepted; their nagging feeling of enslavement to ignorance turns to unparalleled freedom; their awareness of being unclean gives way to an overwhelming delight of being washed and clean. But then they awake and renew their quest to find it.

“You have made us for Yourself,
O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

The it that everyone is looking for is not an it at all. It turns out that what most think of as an it is actually a He. He is Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Son of God, the Creator of Heaven of Earth and everything within both the visible and the unseen realms. The ancient Greeks suspected who He was and called Him the Logos (John 1:1). The ancient Jews had their prophets tell them that He was the co-equal, co-eternal, co-regent (Isa. 48:16), the prophet who was to come (Deut. 18:15), and eternal Divine King who would become human and there after ever be known as the Divine Son of Man (Dan. 7:13-14).

Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
Who has gathered the wind in his fists?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is His name, and what is His son’s name?
Surely you know!
Proverbs 30:4

He claimed to be The Light, The Life, The Way (John 14:6). He claimed to be the exclusive Source of Living Water for every human soul (John 7:37-38). He declared that He was the One of whom the prophets foretold (John 8:56). He stated that He was only One who could set people free from their bondage (John 8:36). Jesus revealed that the cleansing for our soul that we all long for could only be found in Him as we trusted His Word (John 15:3). He offered lasting friendship to all who would trust Him (John 15:14-15). He is the only qualified to bridge the gap between God and mankind. This is why He became a human being and offered His life (not just His death) as the atonement for our sin and guilt, the ransom to set us free, the payment of our debt to God, the sacrificial offering of His own life to overcome and conquer death itself, and the reinstatement of mankind to our rightful place of vice-regency in ruling over creation. His resurrection from the dead ensures our unimpeded access to God not just in this life – but in the life that awaits us in eternity – if we turn to Him in surrender and accept His offer of forgiveness/cleansing/freedom/adoption/new-life.

Your search is not just for temporary satisfaction. Your search for it is actually a search for Him. And your search has always been an intuitive sense that it is actually He who has been searching for you.

Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you,
and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls. 
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30

Your Pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk. 

FINISHING BEFORE YOUR FINISH

FINISHING BEFORE YOUR FINISH

Finishing is quite different to ending. Novelists have the privilege of finishing their literary creations before they write those two delightful words, The End. Life, however, doesn’t always afford the same privilege. Too many lives endrather than finish. But the apostle Paul was among the privileged few. He last epistle was written to Timothy in which he could confidently state, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (Second Timothy 4:7). Although Paul’s life had a brutal ending, his life didn’t end — it finished. Moses, on the other hand finished before he finished. 

THE MISSION OF MOSES

At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God’s sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father’s house, and when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.
Acts 7:20-22

Moses lived with a sense of divine destiny. Although raised in the palace of Pharaoh, through the sovereignty of God, his mother was hired to help raise him. She would have impressed upon that he was chosen by God to be the deliverer of their oppressed people from Egypt. By the time he was 40 years old, he ‘supposed’ his time had come, but things went horribly wrong when he discovered that what was obvious to him was not at all obvious to anyone else!

¶ “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.
Acts 7:23-25

By taking matters into his own hands without waiting for God’s time, he was forced to flee Egypt into the wilderness as a fugitive wanted for murder. What was to come now of God’s destiny for him to be the deliverer of Israel from the cruel hand of their Egyptian oppressors? Through his rash, hot-headed, arrogance the entire redemptive plan of God had now been derailed! But how God responded to this setback is one of the most magnificent insights into the identity and character of the redeeming God.

THE MISSION OF GOD FOR MOSES

God has an amazing propensity for transforming our failures and mistakes into the tapestry of His grand plan. This is perhaps no clearer than how He redeemed Moses before He used Moses to redeem Israel. (God often does in us what He calls us to do in others.) Moses roamed the wilderness for 40 years as a shepherd. In the Palace of Pharaoh he would have been taught that the lowest job in the world was that of a shepherd (Egyptians despised sheep and despised shepherds even more – note Gen. 46:34; Exodus 8:26). This season for Moses would have been a very humbling one for him. But God knew what He was doing. In order for Moses to be redeemed and restored he need his arrogance eradicated and his heart transformed with meekness (see Numbers 12:3).

After the 40 years of humbling (note how Moses’ life was comprised of three 40 year chapters) he encountered God at the burning bush.

And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”
Exodus 3:3-4

The Moses who appeared before the Lord at the burning bush was not the brash, cocky, arrogant prince of Egypt. He was now the broken, humbled, contrite, unsure of himself, Moses. This encounter with Yahweh (the Hebrew name for ‘God’) was a moment of rededication to the Lord for Moses. (It has been noted by many that God never uses one for His glory without breaking them first.) In this sacred moment of surrender to the Lord Moses received his commission from God: Deliver Israel out of Egypt and into their Promised Land. 

This commission came in 4 stages for Moses. With God’s help, Moses was able to finish Stage 1 – the affliction of plagues upon Pharaoh’s Egypt until Pharaoh relented and released the Hebrews. Moses was able to finish Stage 2 – the exodus of Israel out of Egypt through the Red Sea and onto Mount Sinai where the twelve Hebrew tribes received the Law of God and formed a covenant with Yahweh. Moses was able to finish Stage 3 of his mission – the 40-year wilderness wandering of Israel until a generation arose who were prepared to trust and obey God. Stage 4 of Moses’ mission was lead Israel into their Promised Land. But Moses never finished it. When Israel craved water again, God told Moses to ‘speak’ to the rock and God promised to pour water out of this rock for Israel to drink from. This was to be a powerful picture of how we are to approach Christ and receive living water from Him. But Moses disobeyed God.

“Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rockbefore their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” And Moses took the staff from before the LORD, as He commanded him. ¶ Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold Me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”
Numbers 20:8-12

The consequences of Moses striking the rock twice were dire. The beauty of the picture of Moses speaking to the rock as a representation of how the believer was to look to their Saviour, Christ, was a powerful picture that God wanted Moses to demonstrate. Sometime before this incident, Israel had originally cried out for water at a time when they felt parched with thirst. They then pleaded with Moses for water. Back then, God told Moses to strike the rock and water would come out for all to drink. 

Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.
Exodus 17:6

This was a powerful picture of what the atonement (sacrificial death) of Jesus Christ would one day look like. But when Moses struck the rock for the second time he was desecrating what the atonement achieved and painting a picture that declared that Christ’s death on the cross was pointless. No wonder Yahweh was furious with Moses. “And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them”” (Num. 20:12). Moses must have been gutted. He had failed. He would later be led up to the top of Mount Nebo and showed the Promised Land, before he breathed his last.

¶ Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan,..And the LORD said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD
Exodus 34:1, 4-5

When a person’s life ends rather than finishes, it is sad. When a great leader fails to finish their mission through their own defiant stumbling, it is tragic. The circumstances of Moses’ death were tragic. Before he died, he commissioned Joshua to finish his mission; and Joshua did. This closing chapter of Moses’ life is surely one of the saddest in all the Bible. Moses entered into eternity as the leader called by God to establish one of the most foundational pillars in God’s redemptive plan who failed to finish it. All people are designed to find deep fulfilment by finishing – but leaders, like Moses, crave the fulfilment that comes from finishing. Moses died and entered into eternity without the leader’s greatest source of fulfilment and accomplishment: finishing. 

BUT GOD…

But God (Gen. 3:3; 8:1; 20:3; 21:12; 31:7, 24; 45:8; 48:21; 50:24; Exo. 13:18; 21:13; 1Sam. 23:14;) is the Redeemer—the One who turns failures into redeemed saints. I wonder how Moses felt in the dimension of eternity with this horrible failure hanging over him like a shadow? Then one day, his eternal future was changed forever. He had failed God, but God had a redemptive plan in His lavish, extravagant grace. Moses may have eternally pined that he never got to set foot in the Promised Land. But then God interrupted Moses’ eternity…

Moses had longed to finish his mission and set foot in God’s Promised Land and then the day came that never comes after one enters heaven. This was the day he discovered that the day he entered heaven was the day he came face-to-face with the reality of all that the Promised Land foreshadowed—the Divine Christ. But this realisation probably didn’t occur to him until AD 30 when Yahweh sent him on a surprise mission.

¶ And after six days Jesus took with Him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them, and His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with Him.
Matthew 17:1-3

It’s called The Mount of Transfiguration – the night that Christ took Peter, James and John, up a high mountain where He was ‘transfigured’ (His appearance radiated an incredibly bright light) and then Moses and Elijah appeared to Him. God graciously allowed Moses not just to see the Promised Land, but to set foot in it! Mission accomplished! And although it was night, Christ’s transfigured radiance permitted Moses to see up close what he once saw from a great distance. It was in this moment when God allowed His beloved servant Moses to finish his mission and enjoy eternity with the deepest sense of fulfilment. Yet, most importantly, this was the moment when He saw Christ as the fulfilment of all the Promised Land foreshadowed. God’s promise to Abraham was never really about dirt because it was always about Jesus.

And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Galatians 3:29

I’m pretty sure that when Moses got to stand in the Promised Land for the first time that night on the mountain with Christ, it was a thrill without measure, until he realised that he stood in the presence of mankind’s greatest Leader and Redeemer, the only One who could declare after He completed the ultimate mission and fulfilled Yahweh’s eternal plan of redemption, “It is finished!” (John 19:30).

Pastor Andrew Corbett