Rejection

“I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.”
Ro 10:20

I might have failed once or twice hitting on girls when I was young, but surely this wasn’t one of them. I had no intention of starting anything when I tried to strike up a conversation with a young blond in the student union post office.

“I think I know you,” I said to a co-ed who had just sung in our church choir the day before. I only meant to offer a complement and that was all.

“I don’t think so,” she responded coldly and walked away. She must have done that many times, for she did it so effortlessly. I got tongue-tied a little bit and did not have the opportunity to clarify the issue at hand.

I was both rejected and insulted at the same time. The girl obviously thought I had something fishy in mind, which was a complete misunderstanding. I was probably more than twice her age and had been out of the game since the day I took my marriage vows. It was such an embarrassment and insult that I still remember the incident some twenty years later. In fact, I have grumbled about this to Kathy more than one time.

Is the Lord embarrassed about the stern expression and cold shoulder that he receives when he tries to reveal himself to people whom he loves? His heart must be enormously larger than mine, for the particular affront that I suffered seems to be gnawing at my heart when I think about it.

Being a self-proclaimed “dating guru,” I always spent time calculating the rate of my success before I made my first move of asking a girl out; therefore I was rarely turned down the few times that I made the attempt. I was simply too arrogant to take the risk of being snubbed.

Pride and inferiority go hand in hand. I wasn’t really prideful, for I had very few reasons to be, I was just feeling very insecure and being turned down would deepen my sense of inferiority. People who can take rejection well are usually very self-assured and mentally healthy. The Lord is able to take one rejection after another from the ones who are infinitely inferior to him and he continues to try to woo them. In our case, one failure at courting someone may forever keep us from making another attempt.

“It’s her loss, not yours,” I said to someone who had just been snubbed by a girl. “Had she known how great you are, she wouldn’t have done that.”

It’s our loss, not his.

The Lord is completely self-sufficient in all ways, therefore he loses nothing by our rejection and, by the same token, he has nothing to gain by our acceptance of him as our Lord and Savor. Even so, he continues to figure out innovative ways to reveal himself to us, hoping that we will finally get it and submit to him. We are the ones who stand to lose when we repeatedly turn down his overtures to us, and may never have the opportunity to walk down the aisle with the Heavenly Groom.