Tag: Hope

Fear of Rejection

On By Mona SabahIn Bible, Jesus Christ, LOVE, Prayer, Testimony, Uncategorized1 Comment

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If you Google “Fear of Rejection,” you’ll find about 54,700,000 results in 0.42 seconds. It is a real fear – there are phobias named for this. As a people-pleaser, I know that  it’s difficult for me to not be liked by everyone. When I was a child and had just moved to the United States, I was always the LAST ONE to be chosen for a team… I don’t blame them – I didn’t know how to play baseball or dodge-ball.  Nobody wanted a “loser” to be on their team! Later, as a senior manager in a corporate setting, I would try to be on everyone’s team to gain their favor. I was told by my boss that  it was ridiculous for me to please everyone. Going through life, the career advice I received was correct.

Rejection comes all the time and in many different ways. Our children suffer through it, we have strangers and friends who reject our ideas, plans or even dreams and even family members who don’t want to have anything to do with us. How do we handle this as adults? What’s behind all of this? Why are we not able to help our own children with the rejection they will face?

We are created as social beings, to have community with others and not be isolated. When we are rejected, it can cause a loss of self-confidence (maybe I’m not good enough, maybe I’m a failure,  I smell bad, look weird, etc) – even depression. Psychologists say that at the heart of the fear is the avoidance of pain and suffering. So we try to cope with other ways of feeling good. Some turn to drugs and alcohol, while others live in a constant state of worry.

Where does your confidence and assurance come from?

Is it from other people? If so, be careful… they maybe as fearful or broken as you.

Is it from doing good works? If so, those can ring hollow after a while when no one else notices!

Is it from your career? Is it from money? Take a look and examine yourself.

The only thing that has changed my view on rejection, pain and suffering is CHRIST.

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Passion of the Christ
Christ suffered pain from scourging, beatings, and being nailed to the cross. His trauma on the cross brought about a new word in our language “excruciating” which means literally out of the cross (ex: out & cruc: cross). He is the only sinless person to ever live who had his blood poured out drop by drop for the salvation of sinful man. He felt pain until the last moment when he cried out in John 19:30 “It is finished.”

If you are a believer in Christ as your Lord and Savior, what are you worried about? He promised us that we would be rejected as he said in John 15: “17 This is My command to you: Love one another. 18If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me first. ” We are actually CALLED to suffer and be JOYFUL in the things we are dealing with! Why? 

Romans 5:3-5 answers this:

3And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

So… what’s your hang up? Why worry about being rejected and having to suffer. Christ suffered and if we are to reflect Christ as Christians, we should be ready with the knowledge that we will be rejected. We will be mocked as foolish. We will suffer… but we will overcome these things — not in our own power, but in the power of Christ who has defeated death, the ultimate enemy and has RISEN from the grave! Hallelujah!

What a reason to celebrate REJECTION!!!

May Christ be the ONE you turn to for your confidence and assurance. Amen.

What is HOPE?

On By Mona SabahIn Advent, Bible, Jesus Christ, Muslim, Testimony, Uncategorized

 

What is Hope?

What do we Hope for?

What happens if we lose Hope?

The first week of Advent revolves around Hope. Merriam Webster defines it as:

HOPE: to want something to happen or be true and think that it could happen or be true

Frankly, this is a strange definition. For me, hope is the blessing of a new day. It’s the love of a family and the presence of peace in my home. It’s knowing that no matter what, with God’s help, all will be well- even if everything in my life is topsy-turvy.

When I became a new Christian, the hope I found in Christ was like nothing I had experienced. For this reason in the Bible, hope is mentioned in conjunction with God. There are several verses that talk about the hope we have in Christ. We are called to one body, one Spirit, one Hope (Eph 4:4). Faith is also linked to Hope. Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see (Heb 11:1).

As a Muslim, I did have hope. It was set squarely in my own abilities and in my parents. I believed that my own good works and the good reputation of my family would be enough to carry me along my whole life. Very quickly, that deteriorated. I realized that was a childish attitude and that I had more desire to fulfill my own selfish needs than to help others. I still believed I was a good person, because I didn’t understand God’s absolute holy nature and that I could not earn my way into His favor.  Throwing some change into the red Salvation Army bucket solidified the thought that I was such a nice person.  I chose to place all the hope I had in myself.

As an immigrant, the American Dream played right into my hopes and those of my parents. This is a country like no other. If you try hard enough, you can make your own future, your own piece of heaven, your own peace and freedom. As a driven person, I almost burnt myself out on my career. I created competition between my husband and I (my career is better than yours) and I ignored the needs of my children. At the same time, I was raising quickly up the corporate ladder. I was loved and adored at work but at home, I had a great deal of sadness. My hopes and dreams were being fulfilled but there was an empty void. This wasn’t quite what I had envisioned. Maybe if I had more titles, money, prestige, I would be better.

It took me several more years until I realized that hope shouldn’t be in myself or in others. When I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, there was an immediate sense of relief. God wants you drop your burdens at His feet and to come to him as you are. You don’t have to wait until you are an executive, or until you have met certain goals or a rank. In fact, he says “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (Matt 5:5).” That is so backwards from what the world says. I think that’s why it stays in your brain as a kernel of truth that distrupts thought.

So it makes sense that the first week of Advent is to light the candle of HOPE. It belongs to Christ. We cannot lose it when he holds it secure. We can run to him for the hope that shines like a beacon in the dark. Hope beckons us in turbulent times, when the waves of life come crashing down upon us causing us to slip and be tossed about on waves like infants(Eph 4:14).

Have you  lost hope? Have you looked for for it? Have you found it in Christ? This is the time when we can confidently approach the throne of God and find all our hopes and dreams at Jesus Christ’s feet, for our treasures are stored up in heaven.
~We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain… Hebrews 6:19

 

Why is there Suffering?

On By Mona SabahIn Human Resources, Jesus Christ, Management, Prayer, Teaching, Testimony

 

What a question~ especially with the Paris Attacks on Friday. My husband and I were on a plane back from Florida and the RZIM conference that I mentioned in my post a few weeks ago. I love being on an airplane – not because of the joy of the ride, but it’s mainly because the person next to me is a captive audience the moment they buckle up their seat belt. I wait for that little click and it’s my cue to be on. So, I do what I normally do in any HR interview… I ask them questions about themselves. People love talking about themselves and frankly, I love to listen to them talk. You find out the most amazing things and then there are those things you would’ve rather not known. The same is true for any HR interview – it’s that little question at the end “So, is there anything else you would like to tell us about yourself?”

On an airplane, things are not that formal. I usually start off with “are you going somewhere or coming back home?” I can also gauge how open or closed that person is to talking when they pop their pesky little earbuds back into their ears. But that does not stop me. I am kind of persistent (ask my husband! Ha!). I ask other things like – do you have a dog waiting for you or family?

So, on this flight from Atlanta (connected from Florida) to OKC, I got the middle (which I love!) and Stephen got the aisle (which he loves). This young man got the window. He was in good spirits about it and thanked me for not being 6’5″ and 350 pounds. It was a good start. I asked him the usual stuff and found out that he was an Engineer for NASA… not joke. I was sitting next to a Rocket Scientist. We talked for almost an hour (it was an hour & a half flight) about Engineering (our son, Jacob is in his first semester at OC in Engineering) and how wonderful it was for him to do Thermonuclear Engineering for Space Craft.

About 50 minutes into this conversation, I prayed in my heart “Lord Jesus, I want to share about you, but how do I bring you into Thermodynamics at NASA?” I’m not sure how, but I asked him something along the lines of “you’ve told me about how awesome your job is, but what about your personal life. Where do you find your HOPE?” He paused for a second and said “in people.” The minute he said that, he made a face. I smiled and said “Wow! For a smart guy, that’s not the best, most secure place to put your hope.” He then said that he wasn’t sure if he bought into the “religion stuff.” I think I surprised him by telling him that Jesus didn’t like the religious people of his day either. In fact, he called them “Hypocrites.” Jesus doesn’t want rule-followers. He wants a relationship based on LOVE.

 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. ~Matthew 23:27-28

In fact, in the Matthew passage above, there were 7 woes to the Pharisees (see Matthew 23:13-39). He was surprised to hear me say that. In fact, he told me that no one had ever told him that before. The next thing out of his mouth was the question above “If God is so good, WHY IS THERE SUFFERING?” Having come straight from the RZIM four day conference, I felt prepared to answer that. One of the things a speaker (cannot remember who) said was that when RZIM teaches apologetics (defending the Christian Faith) was to look for the question that was underlying the main question. What the young man really was asking is “Why am I suffering?“

Because God doesn’t waste anything, I was able to answer the question based on my scientific education (Bachelors of Science in Microbiology, Minor in Chemistry… don’t even ask me). I said “To answer that question, let’s take a look at what you do for NASA. You calculate and design systems that deal with the impact of heat within a vessel. Even in a perfect laboratory setting, you will have breakdown of matter and heat will escape, right? Well, how is this world any different? The Lord created all things and He deemed them as being “good.” When sin entered the garden, it brought degradation and a breakdown of the perfect system. This world is broken. That’s why your experiments should work out in theory, but when you put them into the physical world, they break down. Man is not a perfect entity. Man is broken. We have to be saved from something outside of us. We cannot be the HOPE. Only Christ can. He was the only one who was perfect and sinless.

In your experiments, you have a standard, right? You even told me that you do validation of data for other vendors who contract with NASA. Where did that standard come from? What if the vendors told you that they would use their own data to tell you if their work was okay, instead of using your standards. Would that work?” He said “No way, that wouldn’t even work!” “So, in the same way, we Christians look outside of the world to find the standards for everything – if we create our own basis for ethics and morality, what is real and what is truth, it will not be a consistent measure. Just as one vendor would tell you one thing, the other will make his data fit his own measure as well.”

I also thought it was a good time to ask the other question. So I asked him point blank “Are you suffering?” He immediately got tears in his eyes and looked away. He told me that his dad died suddenly while he was in his Master’s program. He said that he was not even done with grieving yet and that he chose to ignore it, but it wasn’t going away. He could not come to terms with it. I told him about Jesus, the suffering servant. The only one who could know what this young man was going through. I told him about the Loving Father God, who gave up his son and who knows this young man by name. In fact, I told him that God knows every hair on your head.

He said that he wanted to know more and that Christianity seemed like a set of rules and not as a relationship. At this point, Stephen popped in and asked him if he liked to read. He said that he would be on another 1.5 hour flight after this one. He handed him Ravi Zacharias’s book “Can Man Live without God?” He promised to read it. Before we landed, the three of us held hands and prayed for this sweet young man who was hurt and seeking truth. It was such a joy to be a part of what God is doing all around us. I also have to add a note here: God will use you in a way that is best fitted to you! He will give you the words to share through His Holy Spirit – do not worry. He is the author and perfecter of our faith.

fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ~Hebrews 12:2

Next time you fly, why don’t you ask for a middle seat? You never know which one of His children God will place beside you.