When Your Love is Rejected

Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored

everywhere except in his own hometown and among his
own family.” And so He did only a few miracles there
because of their unbelief.
Matthew 13:57-58

L
ove is the most rejected resource on Earth.
When you practice loving others, you quickly realize people
aren’t so interested in what you have to offer. You also
learn that love is not something you can force on others. Just like
it’s a choice to love, it is also a choice to receive love. It’s akin to a
game of catch (though I detest the thought of love being a game). A
game of catch is only engaged when the tossed ball is accepted
and returned. When one person puts the ball down and walks away
from it, the game ends. Of course, loving people isn’t so simple, but
the analogy is a better illustration of love as a fluid action of giving
and receiving.

When relationships are over

Some time ago, the phrase “it is finished” looped on replay in my
mind in the context of the dead relationships in my life. For the last
several years, I had been trying to maintain, revitalize, pump up
and get things started in various relationships. It took me a while to
realize that God was separating me from not only the nonbelievers

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in my life, but also from the relationships that weren’t bearing good
fruit. Once that realization came, it was easy to let go of people
who didn’t want to be held.
So every tree that does not produce good fruit is
chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you
can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify
people by their actions.
~ Matthew 7:19-20

Late last spring, I had a dream that would have been disturbing,
if taken at face value, but it proved to be a reassuring message
instead.
I don’t recall the sequence but there was a scene in which all
types of bugs were seen crawling around a sleeping body when a
light was flipped on. There was a scene of a big, dark, empty room
penetrated by several beams of light coming through a torn and
drooping curtain. Then the most potentially disturbing scene was
that of a decomposing body lying in the corner with the head stuck
to a mop. Sounds gritty and nasty, I know. You’re probably
wondering where the relief came in. After each scene the room was
flooded by a bucket of hot, soapy water. The bugs were washed
away, the curtain was fixed and pushed back to let more light in
and the decomposing body was removed and the area it infected
was cleaned. The scenes went on in a rotation with each one
slightly different than the one before. The little bugs were washed
away, but later one huge, animal-size flying bug unfolded on a
counter top. The decomposing body was removed with the mop,
but then the mop was needed to clean the floor, so the body had to
be approached and disconnected from the mop in order to better
clean the floor. Again, each scene ended with a full cleaning of the
room and exposure to additional light.
I awoke feeling as if some work had been completed.

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 Whatever I had been doing that was not bearing fruit, I felt free
to withdraw from. Whatever was weighing me down and blocking
my light was being removed from my life. My Father was cleansing
me. He was washing away all the darkness and ushering me
further into His Light.
God requires obedience, faithfulness, respect, loyalty and a
continued hope in Him. In return we receive His love, mercy, grace
and salvation – actually that’s all on offer before we are placed in
the womb. But we have to accept it all in order to benefit from it all.
Our obedience is proof of our love of Him – keeping his law,
adhering to his commands. Though His nature is love and He gives
love unconditionally, we have the option to reject His love.
Astounding, really – rejecting love; turning your back and walking
away from it. But we have the choice to do that; the “freedom” to
do as we please. However, the consequence of our choosing
against God, life and love is that He then chooses not to fellowship
with us. Our choices either unite us with God or separate us from
Him. He tells us to make ourselves holy for Him because He is
holy. He wants fellowship, but there are requirements we have to
meet.
For I am the LORD your God. You shall therefore
consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am
holy.
~ Leviticus 11:44

Follow me here: If we model our relationships after the

prototype God has given us for our relationship with Him, there are
basic things that both parties have to contribute to any relationship
(be it friend, family, spouse, employment, etc.) for it to be
successful. There needs to be an obedience/adherence to and
respect for the foundation and expectation laid for the relationship

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(i.e. boundaries). There needs to be loyalty, faithfulness and a hope
for continued growth and improvement. There needs to be a
consciousness of and an effort to meet the requirements of the
other party in the relationship. When both parties are giving and
doing all that (and more, according to the needs of the individuals),
then each party will bask in the other’s grace, mercy and covering.
And above all things have fervent love for one another,
for “love will cover a multitude of sins.”
~ 1 Peter 4:8 NKJ

However, when love, loyalty, faithfulness, and respect are

lacking from either party to the other, the relationship becomes
stagnant, it becomes a dead weight – a decomposing corpse.
Relationships aren’t intended to be one-sided. Yes, God loves you
unconditionally, but even He has requirements of you in order for
you to reap the benefits of His love.
For those of you not doing your portion of the work in your
relationships, wake up before you’re washed away. And for those
of you toiling alone, think about breaking ground elsewhere. When
the other party in the relationship you’re toiling in doesn’t accept or
receive you, and you’ve done everything you know to do, it’s okay
to let go and move on. That has been a hard lesson to learn, but I
finally got it – not every situation I contribute to (sow into) will grow
the expected or hoped-for fruit. Sometimes the fruit grown from a
seed I plant may not be for me to harvest. It may not even be for
me to water it. It may just be for me to plant the seed and move on.
We will reap what we sow, but there’s no promise to reap where we
sow.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter
the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new
and living way opened for us through the curtain, that

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 is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the
house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere
heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts
sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and
having our bodies washed with pure water.
~ Hebrews 10:19-22

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