Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst addresses the problem of rejection. Though rejection is a side effect of life, God can use rejection to draw us closer to Himself.

You can change the way you think about rejection and use it for your overall benefit.

How should we think of rejection as Christians? Rejection is a normal part of life, but how we respond to such instances can make a difference in who we are and what we become. If we let rejection fester or run from the pain it causes, we will suffer and be insecure. If we take the rejection to God and face the pain, then we can become stronger in Him.

This will not necessarily be a quick or easy choice to make, but it can benefit us and lead us to the purpose God has for our lives. In fact, looking back, we can often see that rejection turned out to be what prepared us for the future and saved us from even more suffering than we endured.

In this summary, you will learn:

  • that though rejection is a part of life, we do not have to live that way;
  • pressing and crushing is a way to break us so we can be molded by God; and
  • in Christ, we are forever loved, no matter what the world may say.

Though we may wish to ignore honesty, we must consider three questions.

Honesty comes in many forms, but the easiest to ignore is being honest with ourselves. It can be tough when we have to be honest with ourselves because we may not be ready to hear the truth. Honesty brings the core of what we believe we are and holds it to the light of what we are in life. There are misalignments in everyone’s soul, and we try to avoid recognizing these because it is an internal form of rejection. No one wants to be rejected, but honesty can bring healing.

To get to know a person, just listen to what they say. This works if we truly listen to ourselves as well. Often, we let our hidden faults come out in times of stress. Someone may make a remark that hits on a nerve, a concern we have about ourselves, and it gets blown out of proportion so that we overreact. If we are honest, the problem is in us, not in what was said. This is because we feel rejected in some way. Rejection takes away the best of who you are by reinforcing the worst of what’s been said about you. We must learn to overcome this rejection a bit at a time.

We all have faults and fears, but once when these fears and faults become a part of our deep-rooted core, we have developed a broken identity. Those with a broken identity cannot expect stability. Two core fears feed a person’s rejection sensitivity: fear of being abandoned and of losing one’s identity. We do our best in life to anchor to things in this world, but eventually, the incapable anchors are revealed.

To get beyond rejection, we must learn who we really are in Christ and find our new identity. Our beliefs should hold us up, even when the rest of life is falling apart. This is because, in Christ, we can believe in the truth. The truth is unchanging, solid, and forever stable. If we focus on feelings and what is happening around us, we will never truly be stable. When we become intimately connected to God, we feel more secure.

Our intimacy with God should be based on the answers to these three questions: Is God good? Is He good to me? Do I trust Him to be God?

Answering these questions correctly helps us see that human rejection can never exempt us from the love of God.

Feeling undeserved hatred makes us feel alone.

Often, we assign to others thoughts that they never actually think. We may feel like we slighted someone, and they hate us when, in reality, that person felt nothing and has no feelings toward us one way or another. When we do this, we feel a rejection that was never given. We have to learn to live loved because God loves His children. While this sounds great, it can be hard to live that way. The gravity of living in this sin-soaked world will try to hold us down from living loved, but if we continue to return to the Creator, we discover He still loves us. Since He gives the love we want, we must stay in contact daily, not just when we feel down and are struggling. We must simply receive.

We have all been in a crowded room and felt totally alone. This is because being around people is not the same as being connected with them. When this happens, we often start feeling sorry for ourselves. We may blame others, but the loneliness comes from within because we are coming into a situation with the fullness that can only come from God.

We cannot rely on others to be oxygen for our soul; we must fully rely on God to fill us. We cannot expect respect from others if we do not respect ourselves. While it is good and normal to need others, we cannot expect others to fulfill all our needs. When we are filled with God, we can love people from a fullness of love instead of out of desperation.

The core of who we are craves the acceptance that comes from being loved, but we must choose to grasp God’s love or grab at people’s love that will never be enough. When we have Christ, we are fully loved and accepted and can say no to the flesh that wants us to feel lonely and hated.

The fullness of love from God is true whether we feel it or not. We are rooted in His love. Though the pain and rejection of life can come against us, they cannot uproot us from God. There is great power in having this knowledge. We must get this settled into our minds so that we no longer live in fear of rejection…

Join Holy Reads to read the rest of Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst book summary.

Download the App here and access 1,000+ bestselling Christian book summaries in written, audio, and video formats