Joyce Meyer - The Pain of Rejection

Well, thank you for joining me today on, «Enjoying Everyday Life». You know, I wanna talk to you today about a subject that many of you probably really need to hear. And even if you don’t need it right now, you could need it at some time in your life. And that’s, «The pain of rejection». First of all, let me say if you are dealing with that pain right now, if you’ve been rejected, someone has left you, someone has hurt you, someone has really disappointed you, I feel for you. Because I know what it’s like to have that pain of rejection.

You know, Jesus says, it’s recorded in John 2:24–25, «That Jesus for his part did not trust himself to them, because he knew human nature». Now, that’s a very good scripture and it’s one that we should learn to follow. It doesn’t say that he didn’t trust them. It says, «He didn’t trust himself to them,» because he knew they could disappoint him. He trusted them, but there was a little reserve there. You’re making a mistake when you look at anybody and think, «You will never hurt me». Because you just never know what people are gonna do. Jesus was rejected, nobody was rejected more than Jesus was. And yet, it never really seemed to bother him. And I think that was because no matter who rejected him, he knew that his father, his Heavenly Father, always loved him. And he didn’t expect people to never hurt him. He knew that that was a possibility.

And Isaiah 53:3 says, «He was despised and rejected, and forsaken by men», forsaken by men, «A man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness: and like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we did not appreciate his worth or have any esteem for him». Well, it sounds like all the classic symptoms of being rejected. You know, it hurts when people don’t appreciate you. It hurts when they don’t value you or ever see any of the good things that you do. It hurts when people just use you. And then you find out the first time you don’t do what they want, then they just write you off. It hurts when you’re married to someone, and you love them, and you find out they’ve been cheating on you.

There’s so many things in life that hurt us. When you’re all excited about something and your friends just don’t seem to be excited for you at all, that hurts. And I’ve had a little bit of all that. I grew up rooted in rejection because I was rejected as a daughter and taken by my father as a mistress. And my mother even rejected me because she knew what was happening and she wouldn’t help me. And I think when you start getting rejected that early in life, you get what I call, «A root of rejection». And everything else in your life is colored by that. You know, if you’ve got a rotten root, then the fruit is also going to be rotten.

So, I had so many other problems, but they were all part of that rejection. Fears that I had and not really wanting to get close to people because of fear of being rejected. You know, once you’ve really been rejected, you try so hard to protect yourself from rejection that you don’t even really try to build good relationships. And I wanna just say to you today: if you’ve been hurt and rejected, don’t let that be the place where your life stops and you just kind of survive the rest of the time you’re here on earth. Take a chance and love again. Take a chance and have friends again. If you got hurt at church, a lot of people get hurt at church and so then they won’t ever go to church again. Well, try again. Don’t be the kind of person that’s a quitter. I don’t believe God likes it when we’ve got that «Quitter spirit».

I always say that one of the biggest benefits in my life has been that I just refuse to give up. And you can do that too. You may be hurt, but the healer lives inside you. I feel for you, if you’re going through the pain of being rejected right now. But I know my God, and I know that he loves you, and he will comfort you. Ask him: «Comfort me. You are the comforter». He can heal your emotions the same as he can heal your body. Ask him to heal your emotions. Ask him to help you trust again. You know, because men had hurt me so much, when I married Dave, I was really kind of making him pay for what everybody else had done to me, and that’s not fair. Dave was a good man that loved me, but I just didn’t trust men. And so, he asked me one time, «Why do you always act like I’m your enemy»?

And it was because I saw men as my enemy. I’d been hurt by men, and I saw them as my enemy. And it’s not fair to do that. You know, I had to learn to trust him. And when God started teaching me that I needed to submit to him and believe that he had my best interests at heart, I even said to the Lord, «How can you expect me to trust him after what men have done to me»? And I’ll never forget what the Lord put in my heart. «I’m not asking you to trust him. I’m asking you to trust me with him». And so, you have to remember, you’re going to get hurt in life. Jesus never promised us a pain-free life. And if you’re gonna deal with people, I can promise you that they are going to disappoint you at times. We have a lot of disappointments with people, but we can’t let that kind of stuff shut us down and take us out. We just need to learn to deal with it.

Why did it never seem to bother Jesus with all the rejection he got? It says that he came to his very own, and they rejected him. The people that he came for, the people that he died for, rejected him. But it didn’t seem to bother him. Why? Because he knew his Heavenly Father loved him, loved him, loved him. And you know what? He loves you too. Don’t blame God because a person hurt you. People have free choice, and they make choices sometimes that hurt us. He knew who he was. He knew that he was God’s son. He knew what he’d been called to do. And he kept his focus on what he was called to do, not on what other people were doing to him.

Now, I hope you heard what I said. Satan can cause a person to hurt you. He can work through another person to hurt you. And if you’re not careful, that will stop you from doing what God has actually called you to do. And you need to not let that happen. Keep knowing that God loves you, and keep doing what he’s called you to do, and trust him to heal your broken heart. You know, we’re never free if we have to look to somebody else to validate us. And just because somebody rejects you, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It could mean there’s something wrong with them. And what happens when somebody rejects us? We automatically start feeling like, «Well, what’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me that they didn’t want me? Was I not enough»?

But I can tell you that when people reject you, it’s not even usually because there’s something wrong with you. It’s just that they have a problem. They want you to change to be what they want you to be. And you need to have the boldness to be yourself. Rejection is very painful. And sometimes we work harder at avoiding rejection than we do at building healthy relationships. We try to please people so they will accept us, instead of setting healthy boundaries from the beginning of relationships. What happens if we’ve been really rejected, and it really hurts us? Well, this doesn’t happen to everybody, but many people withdraw. They isolate themselves. They develop a fear of intimacy. They’ll only let people get so close and no closer because they don’t want to like this person too much, otherwise, they might get disappointed again and get rejected.

We live in the fear of being rejected. We imagine we’re being rejected when we’re not. You know, there was a woman that came to my meetings. And somebody told me, one time, «Her feelings are really hurt because you never stop and talk to her». And I thought, «I don’t remember seeing her». And so, I prayed about it. And I said, «You know, God, you need to help me see this woman so I can take the time to talk to her. I don’t want her to feel bad». And the Lord put in my heart that he’d been preventing me from seeing her because she wanted something from me that he wanted to give her. You see, if we go to people for validation or to make us feel important, they can change. They can take that away and give it, take it away and give it. But if we go to God for that, then we’re gonna have it all the time because he never changes.

And so, that really taught me something that, you know, God wasn’t letting me see her because he didn’t want her to get her value and worth from me: he wanted to give it to her. You know, Dave and I went through a long period of time where it just didn’t seem like we could communicate. And I would always say, «We just can’t talk. We can’t talk. Every time we try to talk, we argue». And we would start talking about something, and the next thing I knew, we’d be in an argument. And I’m like, «How did we get from there to here? We’re not even talking about what we started talking about». And I’ll make a long story short, but God finally taught me that if Dave rejected my opinion, that then I started feeling that pain of rejection, and I would start withdrawing. And just because somebody rejects your opinion doesn’t mean they reject you. Because Dave felt like that he wasn’t free to have an opinion.

So, I was taking away his freedom because I was afraid that he was rejecting me because he rejected my opinion. And there’s so many wonderful freedoms that we can have if we really learn about rejection and just the lies that satan tells us about them. Do you give other people the responsibility of making you feel good about yourself? Or do you feel rejected if they don’t? Don’t go to people for worth and value. Go to God. He’s the only one that can really give it to you. You might have a root of rejection in your life, meaning that sometime in your childhood you were abused in some way. And you got rooted in that rejection. And it’s colored everything in your life since then. But I have some good news for you. You can be healed and set free.

So, let’s say you were rooted in rejection. Well, listen to this scripture, Matthew 15:13. «He answered, 'every plant which my Heavenly Father has not planted will be torn up by the roots'». Well, God didn’t plant you in rejection. And if you’re planted in rejection, then he’s gonna tear that plant up, even the roots of it. And then, the Bible says in Isaiah 61 that, we will become, «Trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord». So, he uproots us out of bad things and replants us in good things. I’ve been uprooted out of so many bad things and then planted in good things. And it has been wonderful to learn how to let God take care of me. That’s one of the promises I have from God. «I will always take care of you. And I trust that. I believe that God will always take care of me».

And I want you to believe that for you. «He gives us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness: and he makes us trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified». What do you think of yourself? That’s a very important question. You see, sometimes if we’ve been rejected, then we take that as a fact and we begin to even reject ourselves. We don’t like the self that we are, and we reject that and wanna be somebody else. Do you see yourself according to your old nature before you received Christ? Or do you see yourself as a new creation in Christ? 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, «That when we receive Christ, old things pass away: and all things become brand new».

God loves you very much, and he wants you to be free to enjoy your walk with him. But you have to make peace with yourself. You have to love yourself in a balanced way. The Bible says in the New Testament, «That the first and the most important commandment is, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, strength, and soul. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor even as you love yourself». You see, unless you love yourself, you don’t have any love to give away. God’s love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost when we’re born again. So, he fills us up with love. And if we receive that love, then we can begin to love ourselves, not in a selfish, self-centered way, but love the self that God created us to be. Love the God part of us. And when you do that, then you can also pour that love out on other people.

I had a very difficult time loving myself, I mean, loving other people. But then I found out I didn’t even really like myself. I was always not liking this and not liking that. And one of the things I didn’t like was my voice, because I thought my voice was too gruff and rough. And here, now, God is blasting my voice all over the world by TV. Well, I guess he must have liked it. And he gave it to me for a reason. You know, God’s ways are mysterious. And I didn’t know he was going to put me on TV. And the fact that my voice is a little more, we’ll call it full-bodied. I’ve learned to do that instead of saying it’s gruff. I think it makes it possible for men to listen to me as well as women. If I had a sweet little squeaky voice, might be a little hard for men to take in. Matter of fact, a lot of times when I’m out and I say something, people will say that voice. I know who you are. I recognize that voice.

Well, God has sort of made my voice famous. And it was the thing that I disliked about myself the most. Now, isn’t it funny that the thing you dislike the most is the thing that God just may use? Make peace with yourself today. Do it today. Come to terms of peace with yourself. Forgive yourself. Receive the forgiveness. Be merciful with yourself. Don’t be hard on yourself every time you make a mistake. 1 Peter 3:11 says, «Let him turn away», it’s talking about if you want to enjoy life, «Let him turn from wickedness and shun it, and let him do right. Let him search for peace, (harmony, undisturbedness from fears, agitating passions, and moral conflicts) and seek it eagerly. Do not merely desire peaceful relations with God, with your fellowmen, and with yourself, but pursue and go after them»! He says, «We should go after peace with ourselves».

Are you at peace with yourself today? Or have you rejected your own self? Some people hate themselves. Some don’t like themselves, but some go so far as to hate themselves and reject themselves. They don’t wanna be who they are. They always want to be somebody else. And, you know, I know what that’s like. I was like that. I rejected myself. Well, you know what? I’ve come to a point now where I like myself. I don’t wanna be somebody else. I don’t wanna different personality. I don’t even want a different voice anymore. I’ve accepted myself because I believe that I am accepted by God. I love myself in a balanced way. Now, I don’t love everything I do because I make mistakes, but I love the Joyce that God created me to be. And I’m working every day, growing closer and closer to becoming that person.

2 Corinthians 5:7 says, «We walk by faith». We should stop taking a continual inventory of everything that’s wrong with us and see ourselves by faith the way God says we are in his word. «We walk by faith we regulate our lives and conduct ourselves by our conviction or belief respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, thus we walk not by sight or by appearance». But we walk by faith. You know, you can’t just walk by the way you feel. I mean, I’ve yet to wake up in the morning and have the enemy whisper in my ear how great I am. But he sure is good at making a list of everything that’s wrong with me. Stop taking a continual inventory of everything that’s wrong with you. When you ask for forgiveness, receive it, and go on. Let it go. God completely washes it away in his blood. You have been redeemed. You’ve been bought back from the enemy, and he has no business in your life.

Are you really in faith when you’re thinking about all your faults all the time? Are you in faith when you say bad things about yourself? Use your faith to believe what God’s word says about you. You know, there’s a wonderful scripture in Philemon 1:6. I never really saw this until about several months ago. And it’s just really come to mean a lot to me. It says, «Your faith is made effectual by acknowledging every good thing in you». Well, what does that mean? My faith has no effect if I’m rejecting my own self because somebody else has rejected me. But I have to believe what God’s word says about me if I want my faith to have any effect.

You’re loved. You belong to God. Think about that. You belong to God. You’re his. He’s redeemed you. You belong to him. He purchased you with the blood of his son. And you are created uniquely by God’s own hand. You’re not weird or strange. You’re unique. You’re one of a kind. There’s nobody else on the earth just like you. And God doesn’t want you to try to be somebody else. He wants you to receive and accept who you are and be the best you that you can be. You’re special, the apple of God’s eye. God is especially fond of you. Can you believe that today?

God has his eye on you right now. He wrote down every day of your life in his book before even one of them took place. And I can tell you, God has got a good life planned for you. Don’t compare yourself to other people. That’s something you don’t wanna do anymore. If you’ve been doing it, and I did it for a long time. I was always comparing myself to other people. And I finally decided through the teaching of God’s word that I think it’s offensive to God when we try to be somebody other than who he created us to be.

Things we tend to compare, «How do I look»? «I don’t look as good as she does». «Well, I wish I was as small as she was». «I wish I could sing like that». «I wish I had that nice, long, beautiful hair». And I look at other women with long hair, and I think, «Wow, your hair is beautiful». But I no longer say, «I wish I had your hair». I’m happy to be who God created me to be, and I want you to be the same way. I pray for you today, if you’re going through the pain of rejection, I want you to realize that just because a person rejected you doesn’t mean that you have no worth or value.

You are very valuable to God and worth a great deal to him. And he wants to heal you from that pain of rejection if you’ll open up your heart and receive it, right now. Just receive. Spend time receiving from God. And don’t let somebody else, not wanting you, determine your joy and your happiness. God wants you. He loves you. You are a special person. I’m so glad that you joined me today, and I hope you feel better. If you’re still in the process of being healed from rejection, please know that if you continue to hang out with God, he will comfort you, and he will give you exactly what you need. Thank you.