Weekly Inspiration by Pastor Bola Iduoze SHE WAS READY FOR REJECTION It has been a very busy morning in the church office and the office telephone started ringing. After a few times, I decided to pause my activity and pick up the phone. A lovely and friendly ladys voice came on. It was obvious this was a sales call; but I was still happy to hear her out as she sounded nice and also seemed a healthy distraction from the activities I was doing at that moment. She however did something surprising- after asking for Eddie, I was about to pass her on to Eddie when she said, I understand he is not available; thats fine- Ill call back another time and right after that, she dropped the phone. I looked at Eddie and said what just happened, to which he replied; she was ready for rejection! She expected to be rejected and so reacted based on her expectation. Probably based on her previous experience with the earlier calls she had made; she just assumed the next person would equally push her off. Her story reminded me of a lady we once hired in our consultancy firm about a decade ago. We needed a telesales person and she came for the interview; she was perfect because, she lived close to the office and needed the right number of hours so she could work around her childrens school hours. Being a mum at home, she also had a way she came across on the phone that was beneficial to us getting appointments booked to see decision-makers in organisations. She was perfect for the job; but interestingly she came to the interview and highlighted all the things we saw and liked in her as the reason why she would probably not be hired for the job. She expected rejection and was ready for it. When we eventually told her that we wanted to hire her because of those things she saw as limitations, she told us she was so shocked and could not believe it. We did hire her and for the period we needed her, she was absolutely excellent at her work. From these two ladys stories, I asked myself the question, why do we sometimes expect and get ready for rejection? Why do we perceive everything about ourselves as limitations and weaknesses? Is it just because we are trying to avoid disappointments or are there other deeper reasons? Its interesting to note that a bunch of people in the bible did the same. When the children of Israel were about to enter the Promised Land, they sent spies to go check out the land. When they came back, the majority of them gave negative reports. Gods word says; But the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we. There, we saw giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in OUR OWN EYES, and so we were in their sight. Numbers 13:31, 33 It is amazing to note that these spies projected a problem they saw in their own eyes and they automatically concluded that that was the way it would be perceived by others. As much as we sometimes wonder why they would ever think that way, many of us tend to do that in many areas of our lives as well. We see only our weaknesses and challenges and never see our big God and the impact of His presence with us in our situation. We sometimes also think so little of ourselves that we do not take on big or new ventures because we think we are not good enough nor capable of delivering successful results. I will like to remind you that you carry with you a big God and He is interested in your success. Believe in Him, believe in yourself and these two things will change your attitude as well as your results. Start seeing yourself differently and your promised land awaits you. God is on your side! PB
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 21:20:23 +0000