Joyce Meyer - Defying a Culture of Rejection - Part 2
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Ginger Stache: Hey, everyone. Rejection is rampant in our culture today. And it's one of the number one tools that satan uses to keep people from fulfilling the call of God on their life. It's not a question of if you'll face rejection, but when. And so, today, Joyce, Erin, our friend, Lisa Bevere, and i, will continue to give you practical ways on how to handle rejection. It's a great conversation, so let's talk it out.
Ginger Stache: So, what are some of the areas that you guys have dealt with, with rejection or felt rejected?
Erin Cluley: I mean, I was just thinking it really is a daily battle, I think, because you can...
Joyce Meyer: You get rejected every day, here?
Erin Cluley: All the time. All the time, Joyce. Let's talk about it. No, I think it's that lens of seeing things through rejection. It can easily creep in. And so, if like, if I'm in a meeting and I say, I have an idea, and someone doesn't like it, I can feel myself say, "Oh, well, they must think I'm an idiot," or "I'm just, I'm not smart enough, so I don't belong here". So, I have to quickly say, "No, that's just a different opinion. It's okay that we don't go with my idea, that you're not rejecting me as a person". Even at home. I mean, it's just like you were saying, too, mike cannot agree with my opinion, that doesn't mean he rejects me as a person. That means he doesn't like my idea. So, I think it's a daily paying attention to those things, so, it doesn't like root inside of your heart and cause bitterness.
Joyce Meyer: You know, the more confidence you have, the better you feel about yourself, not in a haughty, prideful way, the less you will think you're being rejected.
Erin Cluley: Oh, absolutely.
Joyce Meyer: So, it really has a lot to do, the devil can't do that to you as much if you know who you are in Christ. And I think if you're ever gonna get over rejection, you have to get to the point where you know that if the only person you ever have in your life is God, that you'll survive.
Erin Cluley: I just had this conversation the other day with someone that if you have to do something that feels scary and you feel insecure in that area, I said, "The one thing I've gotten to is that Jesus is the only reason that I'm doing any of this in the room". So, if I say something and it tanks, he's proud of me and I did my best, and he knows my heart. And so, if it fails, that's fine. But at least, at the end of the day, I know that he loves me and he's proud of me.
Joyce Meyer: Right.
Erin Cluley: And then I can sleep at night.
Joyce Meyer: One of the ways, Ginger, that we try to protect ourself from rejection is by making inner vows. Promising, "Well, then I just, I don't need you. I don't need anybody".
Ginger Stache: Right, yeah.
Joyce Meyer: And that was, I made so many promises to myself. "No man is ever gonna tell me what to do again".
Lisa Bevere: Yeah, yep.
Joyce Meyer: "I will never need anybody". When I got into ministry, I had to break those. I had to repent and break 'em because those promises that you make yourself, they make you hard. You know, when you've been hurt a lot, you can get hard-hearted, and you have to ask God to tenderize that hard heart. It says he "Takes the hard heart out of a man and gives him a heart of flesh". And there's so many ways that we, "You're not gonna reject me because I'm not gonna let you into my life". You know, "I'm not gonna give you a chance to reject me".
Lisa Bevere: I did that with John. The first, I would say, eight years of our marriage, because I had heard from my mom, "You can't trust men. They'll always leave. You just, you better figure out a way. Don't ever be dependent. Don't ever..." And so, I did the same thing. Like, I took that in. And what happened was I gave John just a part of my heart. Because I thought, "If I give him all of my heart and he leaves, I'll have nothing". So, I remember, like, if we we're hugging, I'd just start patting him, like, "Okay, we're done. That was enough". And John would say, "Lisa, you're always the first one to push away. You're always the first one to..." He said, "I'm not your dad". And I remember thinking, "Well, I know you're not my dad," but I had to take that to prayer. And John said to me, "I don't know how old we're gonna have to be. Do we have to be 79? And you you look at me and say, 'wow, you're still here'"! He said, "We're gonna miss so much fun in the interim". And I had to bring it to God. And I had to say, "I would rather give all of my heart and be rejected than have a question Mark for the rest of my life that if I had given it all, then I would", and I think we have to, I mean, I'm so glad you brought that up because I remember writing it in my diary as a little girl. "I will never..." "I will always..." Like these things.
Joyce Meyer: "You can't trust men. You can't trust anybody".
Lisa Bevere: "No one will be there for you".
Joyce Meyer: My dad used to tell me, he told me over and over, "You cannot trust anybody, everybody's out to get you".
Lisa Bevere: I'm sorry.
Joyce Meyer: And I heard that over and over growing up. And you know.
Lisa Bevere: So, we have to, I mean, if that's the thing, then you're rejecting them before they can reject you, which is just kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. You're gonna always end up pushing away the very people that you want to bring the closest in your life. And so, I do think in this culture, we have to be careful who we give that much power over us.
Joyce Meyer: What about this "I'm canceling you," thing? I don't even know that I totally get that.
Lisa Bevere: It's called cancel culture.
Joyce Meyer: How can you cancel somebody?
Lisa Bevere: So, if we all get mad at Ginger, if Ginger makes a post on Instagram, and we're like, "Well, Ginger, I don't agree with you". And then Erin gets on, she's like, "I don't agree with her either". Then Erin's like, "Come on, everybody, let's all go after Ginger". And she reposts it, and then her friends repost it, then my friends repost it, then you come along and are like, "I don't agree with Ginger either". And then you start reposting and we raise a mob. And the mob has just a keyboard, they don't know Ginger, they don't care about her. The mob says, "We cancel her". And everybody has to hate her.
Ginger Stache: It's that definition of rejection. "You don't matter".
Joyce Meyer: That is so ridiculous.
Lisa Bevere: That's what they do.
Ginger Stache: "That you're not acceptable".
Lisa Bevere: But it's very destructive.
Joyce Meyer: I know it's real, but it sounds so weird to me.
Lisa Bevere: Listen, every night I turn off my phone, this is what I say. I say, "Good night, pretend world". And I just put it down.
Lisa Bevere: I'm like, "This is not my real world". My real world, I have phone numbers on the people. This is not my real world, but to other people, that is their real world.
Joyce Meyer: I would not get on the internet and read what people are saying about me. I mean, I did that for like, two minutes, you know, one day last week.
Lisa Bevere: It'll hurt your heart.
Joyce Meyer: But it's like, it's just so ridiculous. It's like...
Lisa Bevere: But if you don't know who you are, in Christ...
Erin Cluley: Absolutely.
Joyce Meyer: Yeah, you gotta know who you are.
Lisa Bevere: You let other people define you.
Joyce Meyer: And you have to come to the point where you say, "I can survive rejection". That was a place I got to. "If you reject me, I will survive it because God has accepted me". Otherwise, if you don't, the devil is just gonna play with you all of your life.
Ginger Stache: Right, the other thing that I've really found is that looking at the rejection as the problem and not the person who is the source of that rejection. Because there's so much hurt in other people, like you were saying, that's why things happen the way that they do. We try to make ourselves feel better by rejecting someone else. And you always talk about "Hurt people hurt people". And so, if I can not look at the rejection as that person who's the enemy, it's the rejection that's the enemy, then I can make the choice. "I'm not gonna let this rejection have that much power over me because I know who Jesus says I am".
Joyce Meyer: Right.
Ginger Stache: And so, it really gives you a wonderful tool of how to deal with this differently instead of hating the person who rejected you.
Joyce Meyer: And because somebody rejects you doesn't mean they're right.
Ginger Stache: Oh, right, yeah.
Joyce Meyer: You know, I kinda got to the point, like, "Well, you're gonna miss a good friend because I'm..."
Erin Cluley: We all decided you're great.
Joyce Meyer: "I'm really a cool person".
Erin Cluley: You are.
Ginger Stache: Yeah.
Erin Cluley: I think cancel culture is dangerous because it... And also gives us, as Christians, an opportunity because it defies redemption and it promotes a culture of perfectionism.
Lisa Bevere: It's a cut-off.
Erin Cluley: It is. So, as a Christian, you're able to say, "No, there is redemption for if you've messed up. If you have done something wrong or said something wrong, there is a God who loves you and can redeem you," which goes against cancel culture. So, that gives us an opportunity to share that with people who don't know him.
Joyce Meyer: This is so important for parents to teach their children. You know, it's easy for us to sit here and say this because we're old enough now, we don't care. But teenagers care.
Erin Cluley: Some of us are trying really hard.
Joyce Meyer: I mean, teenagers care. They're very much affected by this, and they really want acceptance by their peers.
Lisa Bevere: And then you have to hate the people that you're supposed to hate, or you get rejected.
Joyce Meyer: Yeah. So, parents really, please, please, if you're a parent with a young child, an adolescent or a teenager, teach them what we're saying here today that, you know, don't let people control you with rejection.
Ginger Stache: You know, though, I remember thinking, "When will I be old enough not to care about some of this stuff"? And what you were saying earlier about how it's the people who mean the most to us that when they reject us, that's a whole different feeling. That's what's really different. And sometimes there are different seasons in our life and changes that happen in our life that we take as rejection that really aren't that. It's just because life is always changing. And so, like even with my daughters. I love those girls so much. You know, I'm just giddy about them. I think they're amazing. But our relationship as they get older and they've gotten married and they have their own families have changed. And I remember thinking, I didn't think, I thought that I would always be the parent that they wanna run to and tell everything. You know, "I can't wait to share everything," 'cause we've had that relationship before. But as life changes, I feel more like I'm digging things out of them sometimes. You know, I don't always know what's going on. Or I see it on social media and I'm like, "Oh, I didn't know that". And so, it's easy to take those things as rejection instead of, "My girls are becoming the women that God wants them to be, and they don't have to run to me with everything". So, sometimes, it's just a matter of our perspective that needs to change about rejection too.
Joyce Meyer: I'll tell you a story that you'll get when Danny, who, you know, I'm very close to, he was my baby. And the last one to get married. And when he got married, of course, he couldn't spend the time with me that he did before. And he lived right around the corner from me. But I remember saying something to him one day. He was bringing me home, I think, from Nicol's baby shower. And I said something that alluded to, you know, "I don't see you enough". And he looked at me and he said, "Why do you always make me feel like I have to prove to you that I love you"? And boy, that really taught me a lesson. It's like, you know, when your relationships with your children change, don't make them feel like they have to always be doing these certain things so you feel loved. Of course, your kids love you, but they now have lives of their own. They have responsibilities to the husband's set of parents or the wife's set of parents. And I just determined I'm not putting pressure on my kids about holidays. "If you can't be there on Christmas eve, and I've always had Christmas eve, then I'll have Christmas". You know, we make too big a deal out of... We put pressure on our kids that we don't need to because of our own insecurities. You know.
Lisa Bevere: When Addison got married, he was my first one to get married, he married a girl from a very similar background than me. Her parents had been married, divorced, remarried, and divorced again. And her dad was an alcoholic: my dad was an alcoholic. And I remember when Juliana came, it was like a weird situation at first because she would kind of say, "You like your family more than you like me. You need to choose between me and your family". So, I took her out to lunch, and I sat down with her, and I said, "Listen, you and I both come from a broken family. You and I came from families that were divorced. And in divorced families you always have to choose". And I said, "Now, if you make Addison choose between us and you, he's gonna choose you. And he should choose you. But he will remember that you made him choose".
Joyce Meyer: He'll resent it.
Lisa Bevere: And I said, "You don't wanna make him choose". I said, "In this family, you don't have to choose". And she just started crying. Because when you've gone through parents that are divorced, you have to love the mom and reject the dad. Then when you're with the dad, you you have to love the dad and reject the mom. And that puts everybody in a horrible place. And I remember, at a point in my life, where I felt completely rejected by my father. God said, "You're looking at this all wrong". And I'm like, "No, this was a complete rejection". He said, "No, what you see as rejection, I see as adoption". He said, "Nothing stands between us now". And I think there is times where, like, I've had friendships where I'm like, "This is my forever friend". And then, all of a sudden, gone.
Joyce Meyer: Yeah, right.
Lisa Bevere: And I'm like, "What happened? What did I do wrong"? And try to get it back. And God's like, "No, I just want you right now. It's not even that person's bad. I just want you right now. There's something I have for you to do, and I'm gonna invite you to be alone with me". And that's different than lonely.
Joyce Meyer: Well, here's a good one. Try having a really good friend for a really long time who comes and says, "God told me not to be friends with you anymore".
Lisa Bevere: I've had that.
Joyce Meyer: "God told me not to be friends with you anymore".
Lisa Bevere: And I called an hour and a half later, I mean a year and a half later, I'm like, "Is it still? Is that still it"?
Ginger Stache: "Is God still saying that"?
Joyce Meyer: You know, people need to be careful with "God said," because somehow or another that puts a... Extra authority on it. It's like, my gosh, I remember thinking, "God? God, why did you tell her not to be friends? Am I that terrible"? You know. And so, you have to get through some stuff if you're gonna be sane and happy and, you know...
Ginger Stache: That is true.
Joyce Meyer: Doing what God's telling you to do.
Ginger Stache: Yeah, yeah.
Joyce Meyer: And it's dangerous. Some people need people too much. They say, "Well, I'm a people person". Well, maybe you need to be a little bit less of a people person because, you know, I maybe go a little bit far to the other extreme. It's like, my daughter says, "If I don't know you, I don't need to know you".
Lisa Bevere: That's hilarious.
Joyce Meyer: But, you know, I have four grown children. They're my best friends. And yes, I love friends, but I don't have to be hanging out with somebody all the time. I like my time with God. And you know, you just gotta be careful if you need people around you all the time, you are going to get hurt.
Ginger Stache: Yeah.
Lisa Bevere: Or you're hiding from something.
Joyce Meyer: Yeah, right.
Ginger Stache: Oh, that's a great point.
Joyce Meyer: You're staying busy, so you don't have to look at truth
Lisa Bevere: Yeah, God wants, yeah, 'cause I feel like anytime he's isolated me, he's like, "We're gonna take off another layer. Like this is something that you've been asking me to do, but you're not making time for me to do. So now we're gonna have some time".
Ginger Stache: Well, some ideas to survive rejection. What you were just talking about, like, for a friend to say, "God told me not to be your friend anymore". One of the things that I have learned the hard way through a lot of hurt like that is that maybe there's a purpose for this rejection. You know, maybe God needs to put me in front of somebody else. Maybe God wants time with him. Maybe there's a reason that I need somebody else on my bus.
Lisa Bevere: Maybe they were scared to just say, "I don't wanna be with you," and they threw God in there.
Ginger Stache: Exactly. It can be any of that, but God will use it for our good, even when it hurts. So that's one of the things. What are suggestions that you guys have?
Joyce Meyer: Well, I think a lot of them we've said, you have to know who you are. That's, to me, until you like yourself well enough, see, I'm okay by myself because I like myself.
Lisa Bevere: You like your company.
Joyce Meyer: Dave's out playing golf and I'm gonna go home and have three or four hours in the house by myself, and I'm looking forward to it, you know. And so, you have to get to the point where you like yourself well enough to be your own company. And I think just making sure that you're not taking things as rejection that aren't rejection is also very important.
Ginger Stache: Good.
Lisa Bevere: Rejection is an action, not an identity. You are not "The" rejected. And I think also when rejection by people does not equal or equate rejection by God, no matter if they use his name, I think we just need to say, you know, this is like, it's like, people when they're divorced, they always are like, "I'm divorced". I'm like, "No, you're single". A divorce is something you go through. It's not something you are.
Joyce Meyer: That's good.
Lisa Bevere: So, a rejection is something you go through. It's not something you are. You don't walk around and say, "I'm rejected". So, I think disassociating it from our identity, our identity is "Daughter of the Most High God," adopted, loved, you know, longed for, correct, whatever that need is, not rejected.
Erin Cluley: Yeah, that's really good. I love to go back to scriptures like, Psalm 139. And so, if I am rejected, I'll go back and just remind myself, "Wait, this is who he says I am. This is why he picked me and made me," so that, like you said before, I take what I need to from that and learn, maybe there's something I can learn in it, but otherwise, I need to toss the rest of it and just be who he made me to be.
Ginger Stache: Yeah, that's great.
Lisa Bevere: And can I say something? I do feel like the enemy right now is trying to get people to reject themselves from their very core. And I love that Psalm 139 shows God's involvement in an intimate weaving inside, then out. And what the enemy is trying to say, "Reject God's formation of you," and then we will never be able to lean into his transformation of us. And so, if we believe our Genesis is a mistake, it's really self-rejection. "I reject who God made me in wonder, in hope, in love, I reject that and I'm gonna make myself in my own image," which is right back into the garden again, to be like God apart from God. So, we have a generation that needs to hear the truth that they are "Fearfully and wonderfully made".
Erin Cluley: And self-rejection leads to all the other kinds of rejection that you take on more when you don't know that you're not rejected as who you are.
Ginger Stache: Great suggestions, really good. So, while we're talking all this out about rejection, these these are your wonderful walk it out points. This is how you get through these things that hurt so bad. So, a few of those scriptures that we were talking about, write these down, let them sink into who you are, put them in front of you. Psalm 27:10, "Though my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me". Hold on to that. Psalm 139, oh my goodness, just such a good one. 17 and 18, say, "How precious to me are your thoughts, God. How vast is the sum of them. Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand, when I awake, I am still with you". He will not reject you. Hold on to those, and so many other scriptures. Dig in there, make your own list, and all those reasons that, like Lisa said, rejection is not who you are. You are loved, you are accepted. Know that God will never reject you and make sure that you're not rejecting the God who created you. Start with him.