Reframing Rejection: Learning to Love Leah
A fresh look at the story of Leah and how it should change our response to rejection.
When I was asked to speak at my local youth group I was thrilled at the opportunity. When I learned I was going to be speaking on Leah… I was not so thrilled.
Who wants to talk about Leah? I thought to myself.
And throughout the following weeks of preparing a message, I felt God answered that question by saying: I want to talk about Leah.
Leah’s Story
No one enjoys being rejected. Some people handle it better than others, certainly, but no one enjoys it.
When it comes to rejection, few people know it better than Leah. Her father had to trick a man into marrying her, her husband Jacob actually loved her sister Rachel, and Rachel resented Leah because of Leah’s superior fertility.1
I could critique her family for treating her so poorly, but I have to admit that even I rejected Leah when I was first tasked with speaking about her. What in her story could I possibly highlight that would encourage teenagers? How Leah heroically went along with her father's deceptive plan to marry her off? How she spent most of her life hopelessly pining for her Jacob’s love? How she bought a night with her own husband from her sister? Not likely. I looked at Leah from all sorts of different angles, but none of them made her look like a role model. Still, I felt God had something important to say through her story.
The one good thing I knew about Leah was that she was in the line of Christ, so I began to follow that trail and see where it led. I discovered that it was her fourth son, Judah, from whose lineage Jesus was born. This initially struck me as odd for several reasons. Why not Leah’s firstborn? Why not her youngest? Why not any of Rachel’s children?2
I began to look more deeply into the birth of each child leading up to the birth of Judah, specifically at their names and why Leah chose them.
First came Reuben, which means “See, a son.” Ruben was given his name in the hope that Jacob would finally love Leah because she gave him a son. Next was Simeon, which means “heard.” Leah chose this name because she believed that God had heard she was hated and given her a child out of pity. Then came Levi, which means “attached,” also named in the hope that Jacob would now become attached to Leah because she had given him three sons.
What is similar about all three of these names? They all focus on Leah’s failing relationship with her husband. Only with her fourth son does she finally take the focus off Jacob and name her son Judah, meaning “This time I will praise the LORD.”
I have no concrete evidence that Judah was chosen to be in the line of Christ because of his mother’s attitude towards his birth, but I don’t think it too far a leap in logic to come to that conclusion. The only child named in honor of God — and not in honor of her rocky relationship with Jacob — was the child who was blessed.
Whether you agree with my conclusion about Judah or not, I believe Leah’s story has something to say about our perspective on rejection. It was only when Leah took her focus away from her rejection and put it on her acceptance by God that she found contentment.
Reframing Rejection
The difficult truth is that rejection is inevitable. Not everyone is going to like you. If you’re Leah, no one is going to like you. If rejection is an unavoidable part of life, then the believer — or anyone else for that matter — would do well to make their peace with that and begin evaluating how they can improve their response to it.
Making peace with rejection enables us to live more genuinely, boldly, and freely.
If you’re not constantly consumed with being accepted it will be much easier to be genuine, bold, and free in how you live and relate to others. This can apply to everything from sharing your faith to telling the waiter (kindly!) that they brought you the wrong entree.
The fear of rejection is really just the fear of man with a fancy hat on. They’re the same words in a different font. The same song in a different key. When you’ve toppled either one of those giants you’ll find that you’ve actually taken down both in one fell swoop.
But how can we hope to defeat such giants? The same way David did: with a miracle!
No one can overcome the fear of rejection or man or whatever you’d like to call it all on their own. We need a mentor, a guide to follow on this perilous journey. But who?
The only person more rejected than Leah was Jesus.
For as much rejection as Leah endured, she ain’t got nothing on Jesus. Poor guy did (literally) nothing wrong, and everyone still wanted to kill him. His family thought he was crazy, one of his closest friends betrayed him, and then, in his moment of greatest need, his even closer friend swore he didn’t know him! Yet Jesus never let these rejections alter his focus or his self-worth. Jesus knew who he was and what he came to do. Although I imagine the rejection he endured must have been painful, Jesus was always able to forgive and forget because he never let the rejection of others define who he was. After all, what is the rejection of man when compared to the endless love of the Father!
If anyone can guide us through the treacherous forests of rejection and bring us out into fields of righteous confidence, it would be Jesus. He has made the journey many times before with all kinds of people, and he is happy to make it again with you. I can’t tell you exactly what your path through the forest will look like — I’m sure it will be quite divergent from my own — but I can tell you who I would recommend making the journey with. If you feel you’re already lost in the forest, do not worry. Stay where you are and call out for a while. He always manages to find you.
Moving past the fear of rejection isn’t a one-time event. If it was, Leah wouldn’t have gone on to name her final two sons after her still mucky marriage. Overcoming rejection isn’t a once-in-a-lifetime climb up a mountain, but it’s the daily walk up and over a hill. The former is quick and glamorous, but the latter is best for keeping your legs strong and your guide close.
However you’d like to think about your journey with rejection, as a forest or a hill, as a monster or a malady, my advice to you is this: don’t go it alone. Take Jesus with you and he’ll make sure you come out alright on the other end. If he blessed Leah when she looked to him, won’t he do the same for you? I daresay he will.
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For the full story of Leah and her family, see Genesis 29-30:24
My theory is that Jesus did not come from any of Rachel’s children because God wanted to honor Leah as the first wife. Jacob should have only ever taken one wife, so it makes sense that the first wife would be honored by God. God was still kind to Rachel, however, and blessed Joseph, the son of Rachel, and made him a great example of faith and the power of God. Feel free to take or leave this theory. I offer it only as food for thought.
Lydia this is amazing! I love your theory on the meanings of Leah’s son’s names and why Judah was chosen to be Christ’s line.
I loved the line, "The fear of rejection is really just the fear of man with a fancy hat on." This is an excellent example of how our most significant obstacles in life are often everyday trials that we build up in our minds to be unbeatable giants. Your article this week was a great!