Fear of rejection limits God’s call on our lives

I don’t remember the exact time or date when God showed me the root cause of my need to be perfect and perform. In that moment, time seemed to stand still.  All I heard was his voice saying “you fear rejection”. Truth penetrated into my spirit in one of those Ah Huh moments. Light flooded my world and I understood why people’s opinions matter so much to me.

I wouldn’t elaborate more on this to anyone really until last Wednesday night:

I thought it was a typical home group evening, surrounded by dear friends, delicious food, and, of course, time with God and each other. The questions my home group leaders asked us to answer were thought provoking and served to inspire a conversation with God.

After we had finished writing down our answers to these questions, some of us felt courageous enough to be vulnerable with what God had revealed. Yours truly was one of them. One of the ladies at my home group later asked me to write down my revelations for her to give to someone she knew. This inspired today’s post. So here goes:

I didn’t need to answer the question of what I am I called to with phrases such as prophecy or intercession. To me those answers were the equivalent of saying my eyes are brown or I am a mousey brunette. To me these are obvious. No my calling is more than that. It’s to love fully and completely.

What holds me back from living in my calling?

This is where the revelation began to get deep. I am held back by a deep fear of rejection and a sense of running out of time. As a result, I push myself to do more than I should, have unrealistic expectations and am impatient with life.

In this place, the Holy Spirit sat next to me with a stopwatch in his hand (this is all in my mind’s eye by the way or sanctified imagination – I am a visual person). I took the stopwatch from him while he gently whispered to me:

Whenever you push the button on the stopwatch, time stands still. Pressure, stress, performance and insecurities will lift. Time works for you not against you. This is my gift to you. I give you today covered in peace. Peace, my daughter, peace.

If you flip the coin of what is holding you back, what do you see?

This was another question that was asked. With every negative, we find a positive. My negative was a fear of rejection but if I look for the opposite, God showed me that I would find acceptance, love, security and trust. Woah.

For months now, I have been wanting to know what is causing me to mistrust almost every person I know. I don’t trust people. It is easier to do things for myself because I am highly independent and only trust myself to do things. This even affects my relationship with God. God, I don’t trust you to do a good job at loving me, providing for me, or leading me into my destiny.

I find myself racing to the negative comments I think people will make because I am protecting my heart from people. Having been compared against my sister and other girls countless times, my heart got bruised and broken. My response was to form a protector over my heart in the form of mistrust and fear of rejection.

A spirit of comparison had entered my life many years ago from all the times I was compared to someone else. Comparison sends a strong, loud message of you are not good enough. Along with it comes a fear of rejection. The result, I can’t trust you and I have to be better than everyone else around me because if I don’t you’ll reject me. The pain that comes with rejection runs deep and raw.

Right now in your life, what are you pursuing security or adventure?

At first I thought I am pursuing security. It fits with my personality. God didn’t agree with me so he said to me adventure. I was surprised. My husband is more the adventurous one and here God is telling me I am pursuing adventure. Jesus showed me that the reason I am chasing adventure is because I want to feel validated, to escape monotony and to escape fear.

This was no small revelation. I realized that adventure was my escape. If I went on an adventure and did well, I would get affirmation, compliments, acceptance and validation which would appease my fear of rejection. Monotony adds to my fear of having a life that will be insignificant thus a form of rejection in its own right. Adventure would be my distraction from both these things.

This is not what God wants for me or for you. I have come to realize that although these sort of questions and answers can leave us feeling raw and vulnerable, they can also be the most healing to our hearts. God wants to show us the truth about what we feel deeply and what we fear so that he can rush in with his love and truth.

Jesus said, Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.John 8:32

The way forward

Whenever God reveals these deep insights into our hearts and minds, we have a choice. We can choose to partner with our fears and insecurities and our past; or, we can choose to allow God to redefine the way we see him, others and life. A mindset shift may need to happen in order for us to find ourselves living more in the realities of the destiny and call God has placed on our lives.

We do this by asking God to show us what the truth is about him and how he sees us. He begins to define us. In this place of relationship with God, we realize more and more that his opinion of us is the only opinion that really matters. We realize that God is besotted with us. When we read Song of Songs or the Psalms (for example) we realize that Jesus looks at us with that much love, acceptance, and adoration. We are a bride pleasing to his eyes. We are the object of his affection, the desire of his heart.

So we step out of our past and into his grace. We hand him our fears and our insecurities in exchange for his acceptance, affirmation, peace and love. He changes our perspective so that we do everything as unto the Lord. Purity increases in our relationships as does wisdom. We are released into more of his goodness and kindness.

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