Feeling Rejected?

I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to have been to Italy and seen Michelangelo’s statue of David.  It is truly magnificent.

 

Standing at 17’ and on top of a tall platform, David towers above the crowds that have come to see him.  And, as you look at his sinewy arms, his muscular chest, and even the small mole on his back, it is hard to believe he was chiseled out of a single piece of marble.  But the story of the statue is an interesting one.  

 

You see apparently the original idea was to use David as one of many statues on top of Florence’s cathedral.  The job was given to Agostino Di Duccio in 1464, and a huge slab of marble was extracted from the quarry.  However, after starting to chisel out shapes that would eventually become legs, Antonio abandoned the project.  

 

Twelve years later another sculptor was given the job, but he backed out almost immediately, citing the poor quality of the marble as his reason.

 

Like the Biblical character it would one day become, the stone was rejected as “not enough.”

 

You see when David was a young boy, he was the youngest of many brothers.  And when God directed Samuel to David’s house to anoint a king, David’s father, Jesse, didn’t even call him in from the fields.  

 

In Jesse’s opinion David was too young, too small, not worthy.  It was the ultimate rejection.  

 

But after Samuel had looked over all David’s brothers - he asked Jesse, “have you no other sons?”  Only then was David brought in and anointed.

 

Years later that same David would go on to kill Goliath, lead armies, become King, and as the Bible puts it, become “a man after God’s own heart.”

 

Now back to the statue… for 25 years the rejected stone sat out in the elements, but then in 1501, twenty-six year-old Michelangelo was given the commission and two years to complete the work.  The resulting statue is amazing.

 

Psalm 118:22 says, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone…”. This has widely been accepted as a prophecy of Jesus who also was rejected by the very people He was there to save.

 

Over and over again in the Bible, God uses people society rejects.  We see it in the case of David, the woman at the well, Moses, Mary Magdalene, the list goes on and on.

 

Sometimes, when we are suffering rejection, it is hard to feel like we are “enough.”  On those days I want you to remember the statue of David and the words of Psalm 27:10 - 

“Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.” (NLT)