The End of the Line

I'm an American Idol fan (isn't everyone?). Tonight was painful to see so many young people lose the 'stars in their eyes' and come back down to earth. Many were in tears. Some thought it incredible that they would be sent home. Some blamed others. A good many half-way expected it. I suspect many of them were used to rejection. If you want to be a star, you have to pay your dues. Used to rejection? Now that is a sad predicament. Rejection is painful, sometimes devastating. To be used to it means that we've experienced many times the sharp stabs of unworthiness. I don't think I would be far off of the mark to say that most people are used to rejection. For every divorce there is at least one rejected person. In every children's home there are young faces, once tender but now toughened by the fires of rejection. At the unemployment office there is a line of people who were rejected. And down the pew from you at church, there's someone who has been rejected. Maybe that's why we're scared of the judgment day. We're so used to rejection that we figure the One who knows us best is bound to reject us in the end. I guess even in the highest of human love there is still room for error. Our challenge is to embrace the divine ... perfection that has no room for error, no mistake to be made, no malicious desire to hurt. Read the words of a Samuel Francis hymn from 1875. Let the words comfort our rejected hearts and bring us deep into the acceptance of the One who loves us so dearly. Therefore encourage each other with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:18). O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free! Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me! Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above! O the deep, deep love of Jesus, spread His praise from shore to shore! How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore! How He watches o’er His loved ones, died to call them all His own; How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne! O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best! ’Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest! O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heaven of heavens to me; And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!