By Rey Diaz
Remember your high school dance? The hardest part for us guys was usually asking the girl out. The anxiety the guys felt right before they asked was so intense. Everyone would be watching. You would try to speak calmly but inevitably everything came out mashed together. I remember being surrounded by a bunch of my friends and they were trying to encourage me to ask someone. I knew that even if she said no (more often than not), I would still have these friends. Fear of rejection was a big issue for us when we were younger and not much has changed since then.
For lots of adults today, fear of rejection is like a
scarecrow in the melon patch. This fear traps
us and does not allow us to open up those around us. Fear of rejection makes intimacy
impossible. Some have defined intimacy
as “the joy of knowing someone fully and being known by that person with
no fear of rejection.” When we look
at our model Jesus, we notice something much different about how he handled the
fear of rejection. Jesus was secure and
solid in his identity. Jesus accepted
his Father’s acceptance.
As a kid, I would rely on my group of friends to comfort me
after being rejected. That was all well
and good but it didn’t solve the deep insecurity we have in our souls. Only God can deal with the brokenness of our
hearts. If we follow Jesus example, we
can begin to address the fear of rejection.
We have to realize that we have been adopted by our Heavenly Daddy. We have to believe - God cannot possibly
love you more. And there is nothing you
can do that will make Him love you less. That is the starting point.
* * *
What about you? Is fear of rejection something you have
wrestled with? Is it easy or hard to
accept your heavenly Daddy’s acceptance?
"See how very much our Father loves us, for he
calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to
this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children
because they don’t know
him."
1 John 3:1
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