When you feel like a nobody, when you cry tears because you are nothing special that others would take notice of you, when you feel invisible because you are not a VIP (very important person) in the world, remember: you’re in good company. Jesus is with you. Recall the words of Isaiah 53:2,3:
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Jesus was rejected and held in low esteem. Sometimes we don’t recognize Jesus when he shows up today because he often shows up in those we overlook. Imagine that. When he was born, everyone thought he’d be born in a palace. So when he was born poor and in a manger to nobodies in the eyes of the world, he was initially overlooked. Yet, he is the treasure of the universe, of all worlds and possible worlds. Still today, we think he only resides among the religious celebrities (modern day palaces?).
As God’s beloved child, you are a treasure. These are not mere words, but truth of the deepest kind. When you feel rejected, the pain of feeling like an outsider looking in: Immanuel, God with you. God with me.
Even as Christians, we still haven’t gotten it through our heads. We still look on the outside. But God looks at the heart (I Samuel 16:7). And so do the best of his people. God sees your beautiful heart. We on the other hand, often sidle up to those we deem VIPs and overlook the treasures right in front of our faces. God’s not that way. He sees you and me. All our beauty and our pain.
God doesn’t kick us when we are down either. Let us not do that to others.
Jesus is a tender shoot (meek and humble in heart so that we can find rest for our souls (Matt. 11:28-30). You are deeply loved by God, beloved. And slowly whatever that’s in us that’s not of him will be loved out. But for now, revel in the liberating reality that you are deeply loved.