Read: Matthew 10:5–15
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Matthew 10:14
Rejection is painful. It can wound even the stoutest of spirits. Even if it is a message or a product or a service people are rejecting, it can feel downright personal if you are the one making the offer. The fishermen who became Jesus’ first disciples must have been familiar with rejection—their claims of Jesus as a servant-king would have been routinely met with skepticism and indignation. Jesus’ wise council was for the disciples to shake the dust from their feet when they were unwelcome or unheeded. This was to be an act of condemnation, but it is also an expression of healthy spiritual determination. Do not allow rejection to cling to you; literally shake it off like the dust of the road. Forget the failure. Continue on. Begin again.
Is there an experience of rejection that continues to cling to you?
Lord, I feel the pain of rejection so deeply and personally. I often avoid taking important risks at work, in relationships, and in my faith because I don’t want to chance the embarrassment of failure. However, this may limit Your call on my life, and the work You intend for me to do. Help me to share myself boldly with the world, and when I meet rejection, allow me to shake it off like the dirt I loosen from my shoes at the end of a hard day’s work. For this I pray, in Your name. AMEN.