This is the victory that overcomes the world; even our faith. (1 John 5:4)
Spink! That’s the sound I made when I ran smack dab into the teatherball pole on the playground when I was in the second grade. I was playing football with my friends, and I was going long for a pass. The pole never saw me coming, and vice versa.
I had always displayed nerdish tendencies . . . I was slew footed (as my Great Aunt would say), afroed, bucktoothed, and socially awkward. But the second grade was the year I became official. For in that year I got my first pair of glasses.
It’s strange. I remember my vision being fine in Kindergarten and first grade. But in the second grade, I remember it just beginning to deteriorate. Suddenly I couldn’t read the words on the chalk board, I couldn’t always tell who I was talking to unless I got close, I tended to trip over things, and . . . I ran smack dab into a teatherball pole at recess one day.
That day my teacher called my mother and suggested that she take me in for an eye exam. Of course, I failed that exam, and was given the thickest pair of spectacles you could possibly imagine (I was affectionately called “inspector” by one of my uncles from that time on).
I dealt with a heck of a lot of ridicule as a kid. I felt like an outsider at school, and I tried my best to fit in with a circle of friends . . . to no avail.
As I approached High School, I tried with all of my might to overcome geekdom, and to some degree I succeeded. I lifted weights and got in shape, I learned to cut hair and kept mine finely manicured each day, I got contact lenses and threw away my glasses, and I practiced hard and made the varsity basketball team (by my Senior year, I was the captain of the team).
But as hard as I tried, I still didn’t fully fit in because there were still a whole host of activities that I just would not participate in. I would not drink. I would not smoke. I would not have sex. I was . . . a “Christian,” and that was really nothing other than being a moral nerd, or a religious geek.
Looking back, I realize that I was really trying to overcome rejection, not the way I looked. I wanted so bad to be accepted, and I was willing to do anything to get it. By the end of my high school years, I realized that the world would never fully embrace me as long as I continued to strive to make Jesus the center of my life. I would never overcome rejection, so instead I determined to overcome my need for the acceptance of the world.
When I started college, I determined in my heart that Jesus was enough. I didn’t need my friends to accept me; I had a calling from God, and as long as I accepted and fulfilled that calling, everything else could reject me, and I’d be fine.
The only way to truly overcome rejection, is to locate and embrace the faith to accept and fulfill your calling.
