Cornerstone

Genesis 3:16-24 (23)

  [23] Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

The Rejection Hotline is a fake phone number you can give out instead of your real number. Callers hear the Rejection Hotline message and are not-so-subtly informed of your non-interest. 

Who hasn’t known the pain of being chosen last for a game of basketball?  Who hasn’t known the pain of being rejected by a lady that you asked out to dinner?  Writers receive rejection slips.  Actors receive rejection notices.  All of these say, “You are not good enough.”  “You are not our choice.” 

New research suggests that the same areas in the brain that signify physical pain are activated at moments of intense social loss. (“Social Rejection Shares Somatosensory Representations With Physical Pain,” by Ethan F. Kross, Marc G. Berman, Walter Mischel, Edward E. Smith and Tor D. Wager)

The greatest rejection was first felt by God when Adam and Eve chose to leave Him out of their lives.  This was followed by an automatic rejection that comes because Divine justice cannot countenance Sin.  “Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden.”  That was a terrible day which is only overshadowed by the immensity of the prophetic assurance that eternal rejection awaits all who chose to reject God in this life.

Dr. Gayle Woods

Genesis 3:1-13 (9)

  [9] And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

Responding to an alarm, police arrived to see a man running out the back door. The suspect got away, but he dropped his cell phone.  The police searched the list of contacts on the phone and called one labeled “Ma.”  Ma told them her son’s name. 

Below, the first and last stanzas of Francis Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven” eloquently express how God calls us when we are hiding behind the misty curtain of sin.                                          

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

  Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

                  Up vistaed hopes I sped;

                  And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

                  But with unhurrying chase,

                  And unperturbèd pace,

                Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

                  They beat–and a Voice beat

                  More instant than the Feet–

                “All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.” . . . 

  Halts by me that footfall;

  Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstreched caressingly?

  “Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

  I am He Whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.”

by Dr. Gayle Woods