Seize the Moment – Day 742
Don’t Take Rejection Personally!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, March 29.
Rejection hurts! When you let rejection in your heart, it can lead you down the road of discouragement. But we don’t need to give ourselves over to those feelings of rejection because there is always more to the story than the painful words and hurtful actions of other people. Watch what happens between Samuel and the elders of Israel in 1 Samuel 8:4-7:
Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah; and they said to him, “Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.” But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. The Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.
The people referenced both Samuel’s old age and his sons’ inability to follow faithfully in his footsteps for why they wanted him to appoint them a king. How could he not take that personally? But God made it clear to Samuel that he shouldn’t. There was more to the story; it was because of Israel’s recent history, the difficult days of the Judges, that the elders believed they needed a strong central leader, like the other nations, so they asked for a king.
What caused them to reject the counsel of their trusted leader? Why would they reject their God and stubbornly insist that what they wanted is better than what He had for them?
Seize the moment and don’t take rejection personally. People will do what people do and we shouldn’t allow their choices to hijack our lives. There’s always more to the story.