I noticed around 2024 that I felt like God hated me.

No matter how many blessings he gave me (like my first car and my first apartment) or how hard I tried to stay away from sin. It still felt like I was seeking God but that I was the one person he couldn’t be found by.

Well after facing major disappointment in him when I wrongly thought he told me who my husband was, he began to show me everything that was in my heart and the things I needed to work on.

To name one, he revealed that I have childhood rejection trauma and that it has negatively affected the way I see him. In this post, I go into how rejection has shaped my view of him, and what scriptures will help rewire my thinking.

You May Also Like:

• Buying Your First Car When You Have Social Anxiety
• How To Get Over Driving Anxiety (4 Simple Steps)
• Renting Your First Apartment When You Have Social Anxiety

What Childhood Rejection Looks Like

When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher came up with this idea for Valentines Day: We would all write our names on paper bags and hang them around the classroom. Then everyone would go around adding cards or candy into each person’s bag.

I remember I had never participated in a class activity before. But I convinced my mom to buy some candy for me to hand out. I excitedly put the candy into each person’s bag and sat down at my desk. As I watched the other kids go around the room, filling up bags of their own, I imagined what it would be like to get a card from a secret admirer confessing their love me (even back then I was boy crazy and dreamed of romance).

When it came time to open our bags. My friends and I dumped the contents onto our desks. Cards and candy spilled out of their bags. But when I looked down at mine, only about three things fluttered out. My face fell when I thought about how my classmates intentionally skipped over my bag when the assignment was to give everyone something! Was I really that unlikeable?

Those feelings of embarrassment, exclusion, and rejection were not my first, and they certainly weren’t my last. Below are a few more examples of what rejection looks like.

Obvious Examples Of Childhood Rejection:

• Being bullied by peers, parents, and/or other family members.
• Being left out of games, invitations, or conversations.
• Being picked last for teams in gym or on the playground.
• Not fitting in with the popular crowd. Or any other crowd for that matter.
• Being abandoned by parents.

Less Obvious Examples Of Childhood Rejection:

• Not being acknowledged at all. Not even to be bullied.
• Never being clapped for after class presentations.
• Inviting friends to a birthday party but no one showing up.
• Losing friends because each time you got close to someone, they moved away.
• Losing friends because you moved away.
• Emotional negligent from caregivers.
• Emotional abuse from caregivers.

These are all things I experienced in my lifetime and have shaped my view of God, people, and myself. It’s also a big reason why I still struggle with social anxiety.

You May Also Like:

• 4 Ways Growing Up Black Gave Me Social Anxiety
• My Parents Sheltered Me, Now I Have Social Anxiety

How Childhood Rejection Affects How You See God

1. You Feel Like God Doesn’t Like You

Your whole life it’s felt like nobody has liked you. You couldn’t make or keep friends. People didn’t laugh at your jokes. They gave you blank stares whenever you spoke. And they didn’t miss you when you were gone.

It made you cautious when approaching people for conversation. Or maybe it made you socially anxious so you don’t approach anyone at all.

Then when you do have conversations, you leave feeling like the person hates you and wants nothing more to do with you.

These feelings of rejection may show up in your relationship with God:

• You have trouble connecting with him. It feels like no matter how close you draw to him, he just keeps pushing you away.
• Your sins feel like they are worse than everyone else’s so that’s why God can’t stand to be in your presence.
• You constantly worry that you’ve committed an unforgivable sin (but the only unforgiveable sin is blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12: 31 – 32)).
• You feel left out or less important to God especially if you didn’t have a radical, life saving experience with Jesus like other Christians have.

Even though our experience with people may have skewed our view of him. It is important for us to remember that God is not like man. Here are some helpful scriptures to commit to memory.

Scriptures On How God Sees You (He Does Like You):

• John 15:13 – There’s no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
• 1 Samuel 16:7 – God doesn’t look at the things people look at. He looks at the heart.
• Psalm 27:10 – Though your father and mother (people) forsake you, the Lord will receive you.
• Romans 8:38–39 – Nothing can separate you from God’s love.
• Acts 10:34-35 – God doesn’t show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.

2. You Don’t Feel Worthy Enough To Call God By His Name

Just as idols are referred to as “gods”. God is only a title that Christians use to address our Father in heaven, the one true God and the Maker of heaven and earth.

But in Exodus 3:14 -15, Gods tells Moses his actual name. When Moses inquires on what he should tell the Israelites if they were to ask him the name of the God that sent him. God says to tell the Israelites, “I AM has sent me to you” and “The LORD, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you“. In Hebrew, LORD in all caps translates to YHWH. In English, it is Yahweh. Or more commonly known as, Jehovah.

I’ve sung many songs where God was referred to as Yahweh or by his other titles like Jehovah-Jireh (The LORD will provide) and Jehovah-Shalom (The LORD is peace). But in my personal relationship with him I rarely have called him anything other than God and Lord.

Recently, I connected this back to when I was a child and was too afraid to call my cousins by their nicknames or shortened names. I felt so much rejection that I didn’t think I was cool enough to use them. And like maybe they wouldn’t want me to. So for a while, I missed out on a small chance for personal connection by only calling them by their full names.

Similarly, I have felt so unworthy in my relationship with God, that I feel like I’m “not allowed” to call him by his personal name. It’s like I imagine him grimacing whenever I try it.

You Are Worthy To Call God By His Name:

God wants us to have a personal relationship with him which is why he calls us to himself. He made this possible when he gave his Son for us. No longer do we have to go through priests to get to God. But now we can call on God whenever and wherever (Matthew 27:50-51, Hebrews 10: 19 – 22, Ephesians 3:10 -12).

Being someone’s friend also means that you can have intimacy with them. Friends give you permission to their deepest thoughts (Psalm 25:14), personal stories, and presence. That includes the pleasure of using their real name!

References:

• God Has a Name … Many Actually! – The Bible Project
• Does God Have a Name? – JW.org
• 2018 Thomas Nelson, NIV Woman’s Study Bible, Full Color Edition; p. 773
• 2019 Zondervan, The Jesus Bible, ESV Edition; p. 86

Songs:

• Yahweh – Mali Music
• Yahweh – JOKIA
• Because Of Who You Are – Vicki Yohe

3. Being Legalistic In Your Walk Of Faith

Childhood rejection may have turned you into an avid rule follower. Maybe you strived to be perfect so you would be liked. Or maybe you tried your best not to break any rules so you wouldn’t be yelled at, talked about, or left out. Your whole life was spent trying not to cause trouble.

This may have even followed you into your relationship with God.

Legalism is the strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code (Merriam Webster Dictionary, 1). Sometimes rule following comes so natural to us that we may not even realize what a stickler we are to them.

Being legalistic in your walk of faith looks like:

• Feeling like you have to earn God’s love by being “good”.
• Feeling like you have to strive to impress God so he’ll like you and bless you.
  • never ever sinning, never ever missing church, never ever being mean, etc.
• When you mess up, you feel like God will smite you and make everything around you crash and burn.
• Taking things in the Bible literally.
  • ex. Completely neglecting your family or life responsibilities to “put God first”.
• Everything feels like a sin.
  • Going on dates, getting upset, eating fast food, being too sleepy to read the Bible sometimes, etc.

God Made Us Free From The Law When Christ Died On The Cross For Us:

In my journey of God healing me from childhood rejection and hardness of heart, he recently led me to study Galatians 3, 4, and 5:

Because Jesus died on the cross for us, we are no longer under the law of Moses. This means that we cannot (and don’t have to) earn God’s love through our works of living totally sin free lives. It’s impossible anyway which is why God had to send his Son to save us from eternal death. But once we believed that Jesus died for our sins, we received his promised Spirit, and became righteous in God’s eyes. We are now living under grace.

That doesn’t mean we have the freedom to indulge our flesh. Because as true believers we will naturally turn away from things of the flesh and begin walking in step with the Spirit. But it does mean that Jesus has covered us for when we DO mess up.

We also already have God’s love which was shown when he gave his Son for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).

4. You’re Overly Polite Or Formal In Your Prayers

In connection with wanting to be perfect and not feeling worthy enough to have personal connections with people. You may have developed a language that is overly formal, polite, and nice. You hide your personality because you don’t want to accidently offend anybody. Or be “too much” for them.

This may have also resulted in prayers that lack confidence. Scripture tells us to approach God’s throne with confidence (Hebrews 4: 14 – 16). But instead we shrink from him. Not wanting to offend him. Or say the wrong thing. So there’s times when we may over use terms like “please”, “if possible”, “maybe”, etc.

(There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying “please” to God. But you will know if you are a person who overuses it because you will feel sort of exhausted by it yourself).

While by all means we must respect God when speaking to him (and there are times when using these terms are appropriate). God wants us to talk to him like we’re having a conversation with a friend. That means being your total, free, true, and honest self. As well as being bold in prayers.

When it comes to every day stuff, I talk and journal to God like he’s my best friend. But during the times when I really need help with something, sometimes that confidence wavers. I don’t want to feel like I’m asking for too much. Or to make God mad for me wanting something. So like I mentioned earlier, I over use terms like “please” which hinders my trust and connection in prayer.

Examples Of Being Overly Polite In Prayer:

I realized that I was overusing polite terms while reading through the book of Psalms. I noticed how in David’s laments he wouldn’t really say “please”. He’d just pour his heart out to God and boldly ask for what he needed because he knew God could provide it.

As I said, this is just something you’ll know you do. If you can receive it, receive it. And from now on, pray like David. With bold directness to the Lord.

5. You Don’t See Him As A Comfort Or As Someone You Can Depend On

Carrying trauma from childhood rejection means you have a hard time trusting people because you always had to rely on yourself. You had to pull yourself out of depression because you had no human being to even vent to. You had no one that you could ask for advice concerning life decisions. You had nobody to hang out with so you had to entertain yourself.

It was always just you.

Then if emotional negligent was one of the ways you felt rejected as a child. Your emotions were never handled properly by those who were supposed to love you.

When all you’ve known is being alone and rejected and being told in so many ways that your emotions don’t matter. It’s hard to trust that God doesn’t feel the same. And I mean. Let’s be real. In the times when you need someone right now. God doesn’t audibly speak back and forth like a human. Nor does he physically hug you when you need it.

So when all you can do is fall asleep and hope you feel better in the morning. It really begins to feels like God doesn’t care either.

Scripture Tells Us That God Is The God Of Comfort And That He IS Dependable:

• 1 Peter 5: 7 – Cast all your anxieties on God because he cares for you.
• 2 Corinthians 1: 3- 4 – He is the God of all comfort.
• 2 Timothy 2:13 – Though we are unfaithful, God remains faithful for he cannot deny himself.
• Numbers 23: 19 – God is not like man that he would lie or change his mind.

You May Also Like:

• I did a study of 1 Peter 5: 6-10 in my post, How To Survive Your Waiting Season.

6. Being Afraid of God

Facing rejection, emotional negligence, and emotional abuse as a child caused me to be very timid throughout life. I still shrink when people yell at me or around me. I also get afraid that if I mess up I will ridiculed.

This can show up in your relationship with God when it comes to sin.

When You Slip Into Sin, You Might Expect Immediate Consequences:

• You hold your breath waiting to be struck by lightening.
• You expect God to take away one of his blessings.
  • like getting fired from your job. Or losing possession of your house.
• Getting sick or humiliated in some way.

These messages are not from God. Scripture tells us that God does not pay us back for what our sins deserve and that there is no condemnation in Christ (Romans 8:1).

The Bible also calls us to fear God as in to have reverent respect and awe of him. While God is mighty and has the power over our bodies and spirit; he is kind, merciful, and gracious. Forgiving our sins over and over because he doesn’t wish for any of us to perish.

Final Thoughts

Realizing how my childhood rejection played a part in how I see God, has really helped me to understand better my identity in Christ. I am better able to receive that I am a child of God, despite my many mistakes and setbacks.

Even if rejection isn’t the trauma you were dealt, I hope it opened your eyes to how your childhood experience may have affected your view of God. Because no matter what you’ve been through, it will always lead back to your relationship with him. Rather that be positive or negative.

As a final note, I’ll also say that repeated sin can also cause all of the things I mentioned as well. Because sin naturally separates us from God. And the deeper we fall into it, the further away God will feel.

If you faced childhood rejection, how did it affect your view of God?