Daily Jewel

by Pastor Carnell, McAlester, OK

“Living with Rejection”
"If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. But since you rejected me when I called and no gave heed when I stretched out my hand...” – Proverbs 1:23-24

If you notice the first part of the verse—it is about ‘response.’ How we respond to a given situation makes an enormous impact on how we come through said situations. Today’s post is the result of one’s lack of response–Rejection! More specifically, the rejection of what God wants from us. The rejection of a person toward God, and not God toward man. Rejection simply means, “To ignore or shun.” As I read this I am trying to figure out just what or who this may be in reference to. Is it to an actual individual? Is there someone Solomon has in mind that he was trying to reach? Was there an actual person that just would have nothing to do with the Law of God? Or could it be that this is in reference to all of mankind when Adam and Eve fell? Sadly, I have to believe it is reference to us all! How many times have we been living examples of what Isaiah writes, “...all we like sheep have gone astray.”
Throughout my years of ministry I have had numerous encounters with people who have no trouble accepting the gifts of food the Church provided or assistance with bills and at times, money…but when you offer them the opportunity to change their life they reject it like it was a terminal disease. They find all sorts of excuses as to why they cannot come to Church or why they cannot accept Christianity. God is stretching out His hand to offer them “hope and a future” and they’ll have none of it. That is the true definition of rejection.
Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher and theologian. He wrote a great illustration called the “Ducks of Duck County.” It is a good illustration of what happens when we reject what is available to us. It goes like this: Once upon a time there was a village called Ducktown. The entire population was made up of barnyard ducks. They built little duck houses and slept in feather beds of duck down, and gobbled up duck food and quacked in duck talk. On Sundays the females put on little hats and sashes, the males put on little neckties and the duck families waddled down to Duck Church, quacking all the way. One week they called a new duck preacher, and were very excited to hear his first sermon. He told them that God had endowed all ducks with three great gifts—webbed feet for swimming, beaks for gobbling food and wings for flying. However, they had lost the talent to use their wings. If they looked into the sky, the preacher said, they could see flocks of wild ducks flying in perfect “V” formations. But they were content to eat, quack and waddle around Ducktown, and couldn’t even swim much.
“I am here to tell you that you can fly,” he said. “Your wings can still lift your bodies into the air and you can soar like the wild ducks. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to leave the church this morning and take a short flight over the village?” He was so persuasive that suddenly there was a loud “Quaaack” from the back of the church, and one of the young adult ducks was in the air, circling over the congregation. Some of the other ducks were so excited that they joined in the fun, and soon you could hardly see for all the flying feathers. Their lives would be changed forever. They would no longer be confined to the ground; now they could claim their God-given endowment as masters of the skies.
Then it happened. One loud duck waddled down to the front and quacked out a protest: “Stop this nonsense! We are domesticated, not wild. We are civilized ducks. We have houses with beds, yards with gates, a village with streets and a church with walls. Flying is what our ancestors did, but we don’t fly.”
One by one the ducks flew back down to their perches, feeling a bit foolish for what they had done and holding up their heads with quiet dignity. The chastised new preacher pronounced the benediction and they all waddled home, never to fly again.
Can you remember the last time you rejected something or someone? What was the reason? For reasons known only to yourself, could there be an area of Christianity that you continue to “shun” or ignore? If there is maybe it is time to consider the reasons why you reject that area that God desires to help you with!
Pastor J. T. Carnell.