What is the biggest risk or gamble that you’ve taken? Was it a new job that took you across the country, or continent? Or maybe a risky investment? Today Shawn talks about a serious risk that you’ve taken—or at least thought about!

<p>What is the biggest risk or gamble that you’ve taken? Was it a new job that took you across the country, or continent? Or maybe a risky investment? Today Shawn talks about a serious risk that you’ve taken—or at least thought about!</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Voice Of Prophecy

Shawn Boonstra

Surviving Rejection

Today on the Voice of Prophecy, we're going to talk about 1 of the biggest risks a person can take.

A huge gamble that almost everyone makes.

And I promise you, if you've never done this, you've at least thought about it.

Welcome to another edition of the Voice of Prophecy.

My name is Sean Boonstra and I'll be your host for the next 30 minutes or so.

And today I'm going to talk about serious risk-taking.

And I'm not talking about finances or risking bodily harm.

I'm actually talking about something far more common and far more risky.

I'm talking about the risk of letting other people into your life.

Now, if you're a dyed-in-the-wool introvert like me, the kind of person who loves to be alone, then building a new relationship kind of seems more of a bother than a risk.

If you're an extrovert, someone who actually gets energized when they're around other people, you might be wondering how friendship could actually be considered risky, because the more friends, the merrier, right?

But I'm not actually talking about casual acquaintances.

I'm talking about your good friends, the close ones.

You throw open the door, you bear a piece of your soul, you give a piece of your innermost self away to someone who actually has the capacity to hurt you just because you let them in.

1 that destroys a lot of people emotionally when it goes bad.

You risk betrayal, humiliation, rejection, misunderstanding, And yet it's still something you crave anyway.

Even the most rejected and despondent person on earth, the person who just quits trying because it hurts too much, that person still wishes it would work.

They still wish they could get close to someone.

If this life is really just about survival the way some people talk, if you and I are just biological machines with an interest in self-preservation, then Surely you and I are past this point of needing other people.

Mass production has created a world where your basic physical needs can be met without any meaningful interaction with other people.

All you have to do is put in your hours at work, buy your groceries at a big box supermarket, pay your bills, keep to yourself.

You still crave some sort of deep connection with somebody else, even if you've been hurt in the past, even if you don't really trust anybody, even if you've been crushed by somebody else, there's still a part of you that wants a relationship.

You know, there's a reason we use solitary confinement as a form of punishment.

It's because you and I are actually hardwired to be social beings.

Now, that doesn't mean that every individual pursues companionship in exactly the same way, or that we don't have varying needs when it comes to how much interaction you want.

It just means that every human being seems to crave this at some level.

Now if you go and ask an evolutionary biologist, I imagine that he or she might point to the social animals that live out in your backyard.

Animals like bees or ants who live in mutually beneficial communities.

With bees and ants, it's all about survival.

Their chances of surviving improve because they work and live together, and they even have clearly defined roles in their communities that contribute to the overall health of the whole community.

But again, let me point out that on a purely physical level, our basic survival has never been simpler than it is right now.

You and I don't really need intimacy to handle the basics of life like food and shelter.

You just need some sort of contact with people that facilitates the exchange of physical goods.

And I also have serious doubt that ants or bees actually spend time exploring each other's feelings, listening to each other.

I doubt that their interpersonal connections are anywhere near as deep as ours.

You don't have whirlwind romances or bitter divorces playing out in a beehive, at least not as far as I know.

The human capacity for relationship runs very deep, and it comes with a huge amount of risk, the kind of risk that sometimes leads to crimes of passion, like the stabbing of a young girl who recently turned down a suitor at a Connecticut high school.

This boy asked her to the junior prom and she said no.

And minutes later she's on the ground dying of stab wounds.

Now all the early reports that I read suggested that he was an ex-boyfriend.

And if that's true, almost all of us can suddenly recognize why he did it.

We might not understand how someone could bring himself to commit such a horrible crime.

But at the same time, we recognize the complicated emotions that lead some people to make rash decisions.

We don't understand brutal violence, but we do understand passion.

You might not have killed someone, nor would you ever do it, but to some degree you have felt the sting of rejection, the hot embarrassment, the feeling of loss of control that comes from gambling on a relationship and losing.

Over the years, I can't tell you how many guys I know who have called me utterly despondent because their long time marriage just fell apart.

They risked everything for a relationship.

They gave a huge piece of themselves away to somebody else.

And now their personal sacrifice is being trampled underfoot.

And you know, I guess it doesn't even have to be a marriage.

I can almost guarantee that right now, some of you are thinking about a friendship that went south.

Someone took your trust and walked all over it.

He or she failed to respect your personal boundaries.

They were more interested in taking than in sharing.

And that left you wounded, less willing to trust people.

Now I've got to take a short break, so we're going to do that.

But when I come back, I want to look at 1 of the most heartbreaking violations of trust that anybody's ever experienced.

And by that, I mean in the whole history of the world.

And I'll show you how that person completely overcame it, how they beat it.

If you find yourself betrayed or crushed with disappointment, I really think you're going to want to hear this, so don't touch the dial, don't you go away, I'll be right back.

Do you feel as If you have more questions than answers in your life, are you searching for answers to some of life's biggest questions?

Well, the Discover Bible Guides can help you find the answers you're looking for.

Visit us at BibleStudies.com or call us at 888-456-7933 for your free Discover Bible Guides.

Visit BibleStudies.com and begin your journey today to discover answers to life's deepest questions.

Some of the most intimate language ever put on paper describes God's desire to have an intimate relationship with you.

Now that comes as a bit of a surprise to some people who tend to think about a relationship with God in terms of their own needs.

We love to quote a theologian like Augustine who said, our hearts are restless till they rest in God.

Or we love to quote the philosopher Pascal who talked about a God-shaped vacuum that exists in every human heart.

In the 21st century, we have this tendency to think about God in terms of His capacity to meet our needs.

But it's pretty rare to hear someone talk about our capacity to fill God's needs.

Because of course, God doesn't actually need anything from us, does he?

I mean, we are just mere mortals and He's the Almighty, so what in the world could you and I offer Him?

The Bible teaches, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

So we're not even on the same playing field as God.

How could we ever have a real relationship?

It's never going to be an equal relationship because He is God and we are, well, mere mortals.

So we don't really think about what God wants from us.

But if you read through the Bible carefully, you make this remarkable discovery.

A huge percentage of the Scriptures deal with God's heartbreak over a broken relationship with us.

He might be the all-knowing, all-powerful God of the universe, but He's also a real being, a real person, if you will, who has the absolute capacity to experience feelings.

God understands what betrayal feels like.

I mean, just listen to the way he describes the nation of Israel in Ezekiel 16, And you get this sense that maybe we've been telling the story all wrong.

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Surviving Rejection

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