By Chris WittsMonday 19 Aug 2024Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
Have you ever had the experience of being ignored? Left out? It can be devastating, especially for young people who are ignored or snubbed by their peers.
Being needed and belonging to a group are significant issues. Not just for young people, but for any age group. It means you have not been taken seriously—overlooked or excluded. No-one wants that experience. It makes us feel rejected, worthless, of no value, and not capable of making friends. Ignoring others makes them feel nobody wants them or wants to be around them. No-one likes to be ignored. It’s a terrible thing to be left out, to be excluded.
Children can traumatise each other, We don’t want to play with you anymore. We don’t want you to be our friend. It’s one of the saddest things that happens among children. But exclusion like this doesn’t stop in childhood. Teenagers can be ostracised and left on the sidelines.
Can you relate to this at all? Have you ever experienced being left out? Maybe you weren’t cool enough. Perhaps you weren’t perceived as being successful enough, rich enough, or good enough to count.
Feeling ignored can be devastating
We need to be aware we are not ignoring others because they might be different, or because of the way they dress, their social status. Some young people ignore old people, because of the way they look or dress. Others may be overlooked because of the colour of their skin. There are many reasons. We don’t always know the hurt and pain involved, and sometimes these feelings of hurt lead to tragic circumstances.
I like the poem I saw, written by a young girl who tragically committed suicide because she felt ignored and forgotten. Here’s what she wrote:
The greatest pain in life is not to die but to be ignored. To lose the person you love so much to another who doesn’t care at all.
To have someone you care throw a party and not tell you about it…when your favourite person on earth forgets to invite you to his graduation.
To have people think that you don’t care…to be left in the dust after another’s great achievement.
To never get a call from a friend, just to say ‘hi’. When you show someone your innermost thoughts, and they laugh in your face.
For friends to always be too busy to console you…when you need someone to lift your spirits. When it seems like the only person who cares about you is you.
Life is full of pain. But does it ever get better? Will people ever care about each other, and make time for those who are in need?
Each of us has a part to play in this great show we call life…we have a duty to mankind to tell our friends we love them.
If you don’t care about your friends, you will not be punished. You will simply be ignored, forgotten, as you have done to others.
What a sad statement from a young girl who took her own life, because she was ignored by those she loved. Perhaps if the people surrounding her had shown a little more love, and paid her some attention, her death could have been prevented. I have a feeling there are many people, of all ages, who feel ignored and forgotten.
I heard the quaint saying, “Love me if you will; hate me if you must; but for God’s sake, don’t ignore me.” In other words, there is nothing worse than being excluded or unwanted.
God never ignores us
A woman who was active in her church told about a man in tattered clothes who stood begging at the corner near her work. She saw him every day when she first started her job. She passed by him uncomfortably. After a while, he wasn’t there anymore. One day the people in her office were talking about this beggar. The woman said, He used to be there, but he’s not there anymore. I know; I walk by that corner every morning. Her co-workers insisted that he was still there.
The next morning she walked by that corner watching to see if the beggar was there. She was shocked to see the same man in the same place, asking for help. The next day she left home early and stopped and talked to the beggar on her way to work. She learned that he was down on his luck, that he once worked in an office not far from that corner, and that he had faced some awful experiences.
“God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5 – NIV)
At the end of their conversation, she opened her wallet and pulled out a $10 bill. The man refused to take it. He said, It was just good to talk to you this morning. That’s the best thing you could give me. She had ignored him until thinking about it and felt rebuked.
If you feel unwanted and forgotten, remember the Bible says in Romans 8:16, “…we are God’s children”. We belong to God, and he never excludes or ignores us. Never!
The Psalmist in Psalm 66:20 (NIV) wrote, “Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me”.
In Hebrews we read, “God has said,
‘Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5 – NIV)