One of my favorite movies of all time is The Wedding Planner with Jennifer Lopez & Matthew McConaughey. If you haven’t seen it, don’t worry. You’ve probably seen the same story in a million other chick-flicks. This particular movie, though, I loved so much that I used to play it in my apartment in Nashville and listen to it while I worked around the house (extreme, I know).

It’s the classic story of boy meets girl, but girl is afraid to fall in love with boy because of a past failed relationship. In this case, Steve meets Mary, and they run into her ex-fiance, who we learn was caught after Mary’s bridal shower with her best friend, Wendy. After an awkward encounter with the other couple, Mary later tells Steve, “I just wasn’t good enough. I’m nothing but a poor man’s Wendy.” Steve, of course, in all the poetic realism of movie-life, says, “Oh, Mary, that Wendy, she’s nothing but a poor man’s Mary.” (And all of us mushy chick-flick lovers wipe an emotional tear as the movie goes on.)

You may not be a chick-flicker, but I think all of us can relate in some way or another to Mary. Mary had been kicked to the curb like used-up garbage. The rejection she felt almost kept her from seeing that although one man treated her like trash, there was another man waiting to embrace her as his princess. For you, maybe it wasn’t a failed relationship, or maybe it was. It may have been a promotion you were passed up for at work, or a father or mother who never seemed pleased, no matter what you did. It may have been a betrayal by a best friend. We’ve all been there. We all know rejection far better than we’d like.

But you know, someone taught me a truth a while back that completely revolutionized my perspective on rejection, and I want to share it with you.

Are you ready? Here it goes…

“For a child of God, there is no such thing as rejection, only protection.”

What?! No such thing? Let’s explore this and see where it takes us…

Romans 8:28 says,“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

As much as we want to blame people for making us feel rejected, we need to understand that God is always working behind the scenes, and He’s working for our good, so what feels like rejection to us at first is oftentimes God’s working to protect us. Let me show you what I mean.

Shortly after I returned to Virginia in 2003, I found myself in a position similar to Mary: a guy had kicked me to the curb. It didn’t take long, though, for me to see that God allowed that rejection in order to protect me from a relationship that was absolutely not right for me (or for him). God knew that the momentary pain of rejection was insignificant compared to the lifelong pain of being joined together with someone I was not supposed to be with.

Oftentimes what we see as a person’s wronging us is in reality God’s hand, intervening to do one of two things: either to (1) protect us from harm, or (2) protect us from a missed opportunity for His best in our lives.

See, in that relationship, what you may not realize is that that particular guy and I were talking and even planning towards getting married. While I don’t assert that the relationship itself would have been inherently harmful – we both loved God and wanted to pursue God’s will for our lives – it most certainly would have been a missed opportunity for both of us to find the spouses God had planned for us. The bottom line is that I cannot (and don’t want to) imagine my life without my husband, Tim. He is perfect for me, and I am convinced that God brought us together. So really, I’m quite thankful for all the instances of rejection throughout my life that protected me, but also protected the opportunity for Tim and me to get to know each other and eventually get married in God’s perfect timing. Rejection served a very positive purpose in our lives to get us to that point.

I’ve seen the protection of God working through rejection in other areas of my life as well. In 2003 and 2004, I was working temp jobs while looking for permanent employment. I had had a good job in Nashville, and I was believing God for something not only similar, but better than what I’d had. In fact, I remember stretching my faith and asking God for a job that paid a specific salary, which was almost unheard-of for a secretary in our region, especially one as young as I was. I had been on assignment for several months at a nearby hospital, and I’d been very favored to work closely with people in management there. So when a position in one of the executive offices opened, I was very optimistic about my chances. The pay started at about $5,000 less than what I’d asked God for, but it was still a whole lot more than I was making as a temp! I was very hopeful about getting the position. Imagine my surprise and the rejection I felt when they passed me over for an outside applicant.

I struggled with rejection and even that snide cynicism that tries to creep in when you feel someone has wronged you (you know how we start criticizing the other applicant, or the new girlfriend, or whomever). I tried to get my cynicism in check, but I didn’t fully understand the course of events until months later, when I witnessed how horribly stressful that job was; I quickly realized I would have been miserable working in that office. Within a few months after that, I was informed that the lead secretary in the hospital (who had been in that position for 20 years) was being promoted to another position, and I was eligible to apply to become the Director’s Secretary. A few months later, I began my new position at the starting salary of just over the amount I had asked God for! I stayed in that position for 3 1/2 years and loved it. To this day, I am grateful for the experience and skill it developed in me. But I feel certain that I would not have had the experience if I had been selected for the first job. That rejection was divinely ordered so that God could line up a series of events and place me exactly where He wanted me to be for that season of my life. How cool is God?

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”  Isaiah 55:9

Things won’t always make sense to us. And when I say, “there’s no such thing as rejection…” I don’t mean that in the most literal sense. I understand that there is very real, unwarranted and undeserved rejection that we experience. I can’t, in my own mind, justify how a parent can reject their child. Or how a husband can walk away from his family. Yet I know it happens every day. Maybe you’ve experienced it yourself.

“…so are my ways higher than your ways…”

You know, we often struggle with how and why bad things happen, but we would do well to remember what God’s Word says about the way He views our lives…

“When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be”  Psalm 139: 15-16

Does that mean God caused the rejection? No. Let me reiterate. No.
Does that mean our pain is trivial to God? Absolutely not.

I have come to terms with something I used to struggle with a lot: If God already has our days written in His book, how do we explain all the things that go wrong? How do we explain how a rejected wife can move on in the perfect will of God for her life once her husband committed adultery and left the marriage? How do we explain how a child conceived outside of marriage is still a God-purposed, God-planned life with their own ordained days written out in His book? How does a child move on in God’s good plan for his/her life when their parents’ choices have caused them uninvited pain and conflict? In other words, how can sin still result in the divine plan of God being carried out in our lives?

For me, here’s where the key lies, and I hope it will help you as well…

“You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely”  Psalm 139:2-4

See, we often forget that God perceives everything we think, say, and do from afar. Your choices don’t surprise Him, and neither do your parents’ choices, your spouse’s choices, or anyone else’s. He already knew they would make those devastating decisions, and even thought He didn’t want them to go that way – to step outside of the marriage, to call it quits on the family, to hurt you in the process – He’s already made provision in His plan for your life to do what we talked about from Romans 8:28 – to work together all things for your good. I can’t explain all the “why” behind the things that have happened in your life. But I can tell you there is a “good” beyond the bad. God promised it.

There is purpose beyond the rejection. God didn’t want you to hurt; He didn’t plan the rejection… He planned in spite of it.

I’d like to invite you to think for a moment about your own life…

Are you carrying the pain of past rejection into your future opportunities?

Like our friend, Mary, rejection can keep you from the better possibilities God has for you. Rejection’s grip can be powerful – if you let it.

There are people in your life who need you to be whole. There are people you haven’t even met yet who will need you. If you’re living a life fragmented by rejection, it’s not only hurting you, but it’s hurting them. God’s plan for you is full of hope, so why let rejection keep its power over you?
I encourage you today to begin letting God pluck out any lingering rejection in your life. If you truly believe that God is working all things together for your good, then rejection can become a non-reality to you. There’s no such thing anymore. So whether it was a failed relationship, a missed promotion, a disloyal friend, or an unloving parent… Whatever it is, it doesn’t have to define you any longer. Declare Romans 8:28 over yourself, and snatch the power over your life back out of the hands of rejection.

“For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” Jeremiah 29:11