Rejection

For sake of safety, let's say his name is Andrew. He was a brother in our congregation from Muslim-dominated Uzbekistan. He described the threats on his life when he became a Christian. Among other things, his uncle pressed a knife to his side, demanding he turn away from his faith in Christ.

Jahong told us, “Before Christ I didn’t like my family. But when I saw Christ and Christ transformed my heart, Christ give me big love for my family, for my parents. I was really a good son. I obeyed my parents and I love them with Jesus’ love, but [even though] I loved them they hated me…. I love my family, my brother and sisters, but they beat me, they hate me and it was hard to understand. I said, ‘Oh God, I am losing one valuable thing—my family—and it was very hard to understand.’ But God said, ‘I will give you a new family.’”

This holiday season, take a moment to ask yourself, “Does this person really want what I’m buying them?” A new survey finds the answer is likely no! Researchers have found that more than half of Americans (53%) will receive a gift they don’t want.

It turns out that everyday Americans are throwing away tons of money. According to a survey, unwanted presents will reach an all-time high in both volume and cost this year, with an estimated $10.1 billion being spent on gifts headed for the regifting pile.

Overall, the annual holiday spending forecast finds that roughly 140 million Americans will receive at least one unwanted present. Shockingly, one in 20 people expect to receive at least five gifts they won’t want to keep. The average cost of these unwanted items is expected to rise to $72 this holiday season, up from $66 last year. That represents a billion-dollar surge in wasteful holiday spending.

Saying “you shouldn’t have…” might be a more truthful statement than ever when it comes to certain gift ideas. Topping the unwanted gift list are:

Clothing and accessories (43%)
Household items (33%)
Cosmetics and fragrances (26%)
Technology gifts (25%)

So, what happens to all these well-intentioned but unwanted presents?

Regifting is the most popular solution (39%)
Return the item to the store to exchange for something else (32%)
Sell the unwanted gift (27%)

So, if you’re still looking for last-minute gifts this holiday season, choose wisely. There’s a very good chance the person you’re buying for won’t like your choices anyway.

Possible Preaching Angle:
You can use this story to remind people that the only gift that is universally appropriate in the gift of God’s Son. But in the same way, many people reject this costly gift as unnecessary and unwanted (John 1:11-12).

Not long ago, I was at Williams College, speaking with a fascinating and terrifically observant senior named David Wignall. We were talking about what it was like to be young these days, and he made a point that I’d never considered. “We are the most rejected generation,” he said.

He’s right. He pointed to the admission rates at elite universities. By 1959, about half of American college applicants applied to just one school. But now you meet students who feel that they have to apply to 20 or 30 colleges in the hopes that there will be one or two that won’t reject them. In the past two decades, the number of students applying to the 67 most selective colleges has tripled, to nearly two million a year, while the number of places at those schools hasn’t come close to keeping up.

The same basic picture applies to the summer internship race… I recently spoke with one college student who applied to 40 summer internships and was rejected by 39. I ran into some students who told me they felt they had to fill out 150 to 250 internship applications each year to be confident there would be a few that wouldn’t reject them.

Things get even worse when students leave school and enter the job market… I keep hearing and reading stories about young people who applied to 400 jobs and got rejected by all of them.

It seems we’ve created a vast multilayered system that evaluates the worth of millions of young adults and, most of the time, tells them they are not up to snuff.

Kalina and Shane Pavlovsky planned a beautiful wedding reception at the Barn at Scappoose Creek, Oregon, but were met with disappointment when, out of the 40 guests who RSVP'd, only five showed up.

Kalina told a reporter, “It was a feeling I can’t even describe, having to hold my smile and walk through … the biggest punch that I’ve ever felt.” Of the 40 guests who’d originally responded in the affirmative, Kalina said she’d made direct contact with at least 25 who promised they would come.

The couple’s disappointing reception entrance was caught on video, so she posted it onto TikTok, where it was viewed over 12 million times with more than 20,000 comments. Kalina says she posted it during a lonely moment, but she was also motivated to show off the venue itself, which was tastefully decorated with white lights and draping sheer fabric. She said, “It was just so beautiful, I thought someone has to see it.”

Pavlovsky expressed her feelings about the moment in her TikTok video post. “It just makes me think, like, why? What did we do? Am I that bad of a person? What did my husband ever do to deserve any of this? Why couldn’t we matter enough for people to show up?”

Despite the disappointment, the couple made the best of the situation, but had to cancel planned events like dances and cutting the cake. Despite the hurt caused by the no-shows, Pavlovsky said she's also been touched by the outpouring of support from strangers who saw her story and felt empathy.

“My hope is that people understand how important it is to show up,” she concluded.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Faithfulness of God - Unlike some of our flakier friends, God does not ghost us when we need him most. On the contrary, God shows up when we need him most. 2) Promises – When we make a commitment we should keep it. If we have no intention of keeping the commitment, we should be honest to say so.

A Snapchat feature lets paying users see their position in their friends’ digital orbits. For some teens, whose friends are everything, it’s adding to their anxiety.

Snapchat+ subscribers can check where they rank with a particular friend based on how often that friend communicates with them. The result is automatically rendered in a solar-system metaphor: Are you Mercury, the planet closest to your friend? Great! Uranus? Bad sign.

“A lot of kids my age have trouble differentiating best friends on Snapchat from actual best friends in real life,” says 15-year-old Callie Schietinger. She said she had her own problems when a boyfriend noticed that he was Neptune in her solar system. He asked who held the Mercury position and when she told him it was a guy friend, he got mad.

More than 20 million U.S. teens use the app, though most don’t pay for Snapchat+. Young adults with those paid accounts have seen friendships splinter and young love wither due to the knowledge that someone else ranks higher on the app. Now, lawmakers, doctors, and parents are giving fuller attention to these apps and how they broadly affect kids’ mental health.

Callie and her boyfriend have since broken up, for other reasons. But that stress and the misunderstandings she has seen other friends experience have soured her on the feature. “It’s everyone’s biggest fear put onto an app,” Callie says. “Ranking is never good for anyone’s head.”

Why are so many young men so angry online?

Men are trailing women in college and in the workplace, fewer of their relationships are leading to marriage, and many men feel masculinity is under attack. When young men turn to places like YouTube and X (formerly Twitter) seeking male solidarity, they often find more rage. “It may look like we have an epidemic of male anger, but under the anger is loneliness and sadness,” says Justin Baldoni, a filmmaker and actor behind Man Enough, a podcast about masculinity.

Often the result is depression, and sometimes worse. The suicide rate among men is about four times higher than that of women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Approximately 65% of men in the US say they’re hesitant to seek professional help for stress, anxiety, or depression, according to a study this month from Cleveland Clinic. And the respondents who expressed such reluctance were twice as likely as other men to spend several hours a day on social media.

Shayden Walker didn’t know what was waiting for him on the other side of his neighbor’s doorbell. All he knew was he needed some help. "I was wanting to see if you knew any kids around 11 or 12 maybe,” said Shayden, in footage caught on the neighbor’s doorbell camera. “Cause I need some friends real bad," explaining that he’d been bullied at school.

As it turns out, his neighbors in the Ray family didn’t have any kids his age. But one of them had a TikTok account, where they posted the video of their encounter with Shayden. It went viral, being viewed over six million times.

Shayden’s mother, Krishna Patterson said, "He's been hospitalized because the bullying was so bad and he felt so isolated.” Shayden said, “What my life was like before ... kids were manipulating me and (said) they would be my friend. But when they ask me to do something horrible, I don't feel like they're actually my friend.”

The Rays also set up a GoFundMe account for the boy, where they raised over $40,000, exceeding any expectations they might have had for finding help. Because of such generosity, Shayden will get to purchase some new clothes, a video game system, and tickets to an amusement park.

And Shayden’s mom has advice for anyone else who finds themselves in a similar situation to the Ray’s. “If you see it [bullying], just advocate for that person. Just be there for that person. Do not let that person suffer," said Patterson.

Shayden himself has a message for anyone else who might be considering bullying behavior. “How would you like it if someone were to bully you? How would that make you feel?"

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Lord loves to answer the call of the afflicted, and does not leave the righteous forsaken.

Dr. Lisa Iezzoni is a professor of medicine at Harvard. She has done research for 25 years with people who have disabilities, to find out, “What is it like for you to go to a doctor?” She kept hearing stories about doctors’ offices “you can’t get into. Doctors who don’t treat you with respect. Care that is way below standard.”

So, she decided to then ask doctors, “What is it like for you to treat someone with disabilities?” She promised the doctors, “You’ll be anonymous,” and the focus groups were on video, so the doctors couldn’t see that Dr. Iezzoni, who has multiple sclerosis, was sitting in a wheelchair.

The result? Some doctors said their office scales could not accommodate wheelchairs, so they had told patients to go to a supermarket, a grain elevator, a cattle processing plant, or a zoo to be weighed. Some would tell a new patient, “Sorry, the practice is closed.” One specialist said disabled patients take too much time, and they’re a “disruption to clinic flow."

Possible Preaching Angle:

How differently Jesus approaches a person with disabilities (John 9)! He was approachable, empathetic, and affirming.

We all have an ongoing fear of being ghosted. Ghosting is now so common that it was added in February of 2017 to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It describes the phenomenon of leaving a relationship by abruptly ending all contact with the other person, and especially electronic contact, like texts, emails, and chats.

It is a biological fact that rejection or being ostracized can make us feel like we don’t belong and to have feelings of low self-worth. Todd Rose writes in his book: “An entire area of our brain (the anterior cingulate cortex) is constantly on the lookout for even the smallest hint of negative judgment.” Rose refers to studies which show, “A wounded heart, it would seem, can hurt just as much as a broken leg.”

What kinds of snubs can cause distress? The author lists hurtful things such as not being greeted on a bus by a stranger, not getting a quick response after sending an email to a friend, or getting the silent treatment from a partner.”

Rose further writes:

It doesn’t take much for us to experience this social pain. Indeed, psychological research suggests that even the mildest snub can cause distress. Our internal sensors are so attuned to rejection that we feel pain even when it is remote and clearly artificial. Cyberostracism, being ignored or excluded online, produces a similar physical and emotional response. Once it’s switched on, our ostracism alarm only appears to have one setting: full blast.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus understands our feelings of rejection since he himself was despised and rejected (Isa. 53:3; John 1:10-11). Jesus has therefore promised that he will never leave us or forsake us (John 14:18, Heb. 13:5), he actively searches for the lost sheep (Matt. 18:22) and helps those who are downcast (Matt. 11:28-29).

There’s a well-known story about a famous violinist who took his $3.5 million Stradivarius onto a platform of a Washington DC subway and started playing music. He was dressed in a T-shirt and a ball cap. Joshua Bell was accustomed to playing for packed concert halls and getting paid $1,000 a minute. During his 43-minute solo concert in the subway a total of 1097 people passed by. But only seven people stopped to listen. He earned $32 in change.

J.T. Tillman, a computer specialist, was one of the people who walked by. He said, “I didn’t think nothing of it, just a guy trying to make a couple of bucks.” Tillman would’ve given him some cash, but he spent all his money on the lotto. When he was told that he stiffed one of the best musicians in the world, he asked, “Is he ever going to play around here again?” The reporter said, “Yeah, but you’re going to have to pay a lot to hear him.”

Exactly one person recognized Joshua Bell. Her name was Stacy. She positioned herself 10 feet away from Bell, front row, center. She had a huge grin on her face. She said, “It was the most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen in Washington. Joshua Bell was standing there playing at rush-hour, and people were not stopping, and not even looking, and some more flipping quarters at him! Quarters! I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what kind of a city do I live in that this could happen?’”

When Romello Early saw that one of his classmates at Buffalo Creek Academy was being bullied because of his shoes, he was overcome with emotion. Bryant Brown, dean of culture at Buffalo Creek, said, "When you come to school, people look at your shoes before they even look at your face.”

But Early didn’t like that. And when his mother came home from work, he told her so. He said, “Mom, you can take away anything you're getting me for Christmas, or you could take my allowance, I just want to get him some shoes. Nobody deserves to get put down based on a pair of shoes that he's going to eventually grow out of.”

Early’s mom was so moved by her son’s compassion that she granted his request. And the next day, Early presented seventh-grader Melvin Anderson with a bright orange box with two brand new Nike shoes in his size. Early had purchased the shoes with $135 he’d already saved up. He said, “It made me feel happy to see that big smile on his face.”

When Brown saw Anderson smiling with his new box of shoes, and Early smiling right next to him, he felt moved to take a photo. The photo eventually went viral and inspired a ton of local goodwill. The two boys, their parents, and the school dean eventually did a segment on a local TV news affiliate. Both boys were surprised with a series of gifts, including local Buffalo Bills NFL swag, a Playstation 5, and of course, two more pairs of sneakers.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When we operate in generosity we demonstrate the love of God, not only to those whom we bless directly but for a wider watching community.

Despite the massive popularity of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit in the Lord of the Rings in book and film versions, over the years, the books have received biting criticism from critics.

One early reviewer dismissed it as “an allegorical adventure story for very leisured boys.” This critic sarcastically said that we should all take to the streets proclaiming “Adults of all ages! Unite against the infantalist invasion.”

Another critic declared it “juvenile trash.”

In 1961, a third critic called it “ill-written” and “childish” and declared, not a little prematurely that it had already “passed into a merciful oblivion.”

Twenty years later, another critic, was hopeful that Tolkien’s “cult status is diminishing.” This critic also argued that Tolkien’s popularity is due to class distinctions. The intelligent “bookish class” doesn’t read Lord of the Rings. Instead, only lower-class people read it—those “to whom a long read does not come altogether easily.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

People did not see the value of Jesus, but criticized and rejected him but God made him King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Unlike Macaulay Culkin, who starred in the famous Christmas movie Home Alone, his younger brother Kieran turned down multiple opportunities to be a child star. He learned by observation that he didn’t want a life of fame—knowing it could lead to things like substance abuse, court guardianship battles, and the like.

We might be tempted to view the life choices of famous people like the Culkin brothers from a distance. But maybe we’re looking into a collective mirror. Today, fame is not just something that happens to stars, child or otherwise. Thanks to the age of social media, many of us are turning into mini-stars, with the only real difference being the size of our audience.

The leaked “Facebook Files,” which discuss the inner workings of the social media company, include data about the harm Instagram usage inflicts on the self-image of adolescents. Every child or teen faces a fear of judgment from their peers. They also fear being exiled from their social group.

However, the world of social media seems to heighten these dynamics—where almost everyone is followed by a kind of paparazzi, exposing and subjecting us to the approval or disapproval of our peers, acquaintances, and often complete strangers.

Philosopher Alain de Botton writes, “The subconscious argument goes, if I’m famous, I will be free from facing any rejection or judgment. I will have an instant and safe community.” However, de Botton says, the exact opposite is true: “Fame makes people more, not less, vulnerable, because it throws them open to unlimited judgment.”

You can get a cellphone signal on the highest mountain in Colorado. If you get lost hiking that mountain, you should probably answer your phone — even if you don't recognize the caller's number.

That's the message being spread by Lake County Search and Rescue, which tried to help a lost hiker on Mount Elbert by sending out search teams and repeatedly calling the hiker's phone. All to no avail. The hiker spent the night on the side of the mountain before finally reaching safety. "One notable take-away is that the subject ignored repeated phone calls from us because they didn't recognize the number.”

The hiker set out at 9 a.m. on a route that normally takes about seven hours to complete, round-trip. A caller alerted search and rescue teams around 8 p.m., and a five-person team stayed in the field looking for the hiker until 3 a.m., when the team suspended the search. More searchers hit the mountain the next morning, but then the hiker appeared, having finally made it back to their car. The hiker had gotten disoriented in an ordeal that lasted about 24 hours.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sadly, it is sometimes the habit of people to avoid those who are trying to rescue them. God went looking for Adam in the Garden when he was hiding in fear (Gen. 3:9). Jesus came to earth to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10), and he repeatedly called the lost to come to him for salvation, but they refused to respond (Matt. 23:37; Luke 13:34).

A kid was bullied at school because he pretended that the talk show host, Jay Leno, was his uncle. When Leno learned this, he tracked the kid down and drove him to school in his Lamborghini.

Jay Leno said:

I got a letter one day from a kid saying he was in trouble because he had told his friends that I was his uncle and that we would go driving around in my Lamborghini. And his friends all called him a big liar. He wanted to know if I could give him a ride to school one day in my Lamborghini Countach. It so intrigued me that I called the kid, of course speaking to his mother first, and said, why don't we do this next week?

So, I drove out to where the kid lived and picked him up. Then we waited until the opportune time, when most of the buses are in front of the school and all the kids are hanging out and we pull up in front, the doors go up into the sky, the kid goes, '’Bye uncle Jay!'’ And I go, '’OK, Billy, take care, I'll pick you up next week and we'll go driving.’ And of course, all his friends' mouths are hanging open. It was hysterical.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus promises to walk with us every step of our journey. He is caring about our problems and he promises to protect and guide us. We can proudly say, “The King of Kings is my big brother.”

The epidemic of call-out culture is very disturbing to Professor Loretta J. Ross. She is a Black feminist who has been doing human rights work for 40 years. Although she does not claim to be a Christian, she does share a valuable lesson. She writes:

Today’s call-out culture is so seductive, I often have to resist the overwhelming temptation to clap back at people on social media who get on my nerves. Call-outs happen when people publicly shame each other online, at the office, in classrooms or anywhere humans have beef with one another. But I believe there are better ways of doing social justice work.

In rural Tennessee in 1992, a group of women whose partners were in the Ku Klux Klan asked me to provide anti-racist training to help keep their children out of the group. All day they called me a “well-spoken colored girl” and inappropriately asked that I sing Negro spirituals.

Instead of reacting, I responded. I couldn’t let my hurt feelings sabotage my agenda. I listened to how they joined the white supremacist movement. I told them how I felt when I was eight and my best friend called me “n---er.” The women and I made progress. I did not receive reports about further outbreaks of racist violence from that area for my remaining years monitoring hate groups.

We can change this culture. Calling-in is simply a call-out done with love. Some corrections can be made privately. Others will necessarily be public, but done with respect. So, take comfort in the fact that you offered a new perspective of information and you did so with love and respect. But the thing that I want to emphasize is that the calling-in practice means you always keep a seat at the table for them if they come back.

Elvis Presley used to frequent Lil Thompson’s Steakhouse in Tennessee. He was good friends with the owner who used to give him free food before he was famous. One night when he was at the height of his fame, the Steakhouse held the ultimate Elvis Presley impersonator contest. A large crowd arrived, including Elvis Presley himself. Elvis decided to take part and sat quietly at the back.

Elvis said confidently, “I’m going to mash this.” Lil was worried the place would go crazy when everyone realized it was Elvis. There was no need. He sang “Love Me Tender” to polite applause and came third place in the contest!

Possible Preaching Angle:

The judges missed the real thing when he was standing in front of them. So can we. We may think Jesus is a prophet, teacher, miracle worker, and dismiss him. He is the "real thing." The Son of God, and Savior.

Some of the most insightful secular writers of our time have pointed out that a lot of our drive in life, and a lot of our angst and dysfunction, goes back to a fear that we are not accepted.

The famous playwright Arthur Miller (who wrote Death of a Salesman) stopped believing in God as a teenager. But, decades later, he said this:

I feel like I've carried around this sense of judgment. I could not escape it. I still felt like I needed to prove myself to others: to have somebody tell me that I was okay, that I was acceptable, that I was approved of.

He had replaced the God of Christmas with the "god" of audience approval. He was still looking for someone to tell him that he was accepted, and not under judgment. He never quite found it.

Madonna said this in Vanity Fair magazine:

All of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy. I'm always struggling with that fear ... My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. And that's always pushing me, pushing me. Because even though I've become somebody, I still have to prove that I'm Somebody. My struggle has never ended and it probably never will.