Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 10 verses 8 through 11:
8Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” 10But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11“Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.”
Rejection is an inevitable part of life. It happens to everyone. If you are being authentically you, someone isn’t going to like it. Though we would wish to spare ourselves the pain of rejection, we can’t. “The servants are not greater than the master.” If even Jesus was rejected, we will at times have to suffer the scorn of rejection also.
Jesus’ instruction to the disciples about what to do with rejection is helpful. Rejection would take place. But they were not to take it with them. They were not to internalize it. They could not allow it to immobilize them. They had to move on. They had to shake it off and move on.
The scorn and shame of rejection can define us if we let it. It can keep us from moving forward. It can us paralyze us. How many have missed their full potential for fear of the sting of rejection?
Jesus tells his disciples that rejection is simply a part of it. Its thorn hurts. It hurts a thousand times over. But it cannot keep us from continuing in who we are and what we are called to. “Shake off the dust. Don’t carry it with you. Don’t let rejection convince you that you aren’t enough.”
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