We All Just Want to Belong

 

Belonging - the beautiful place where we know we are loved, valued and a place is made just for us.

In every heart lies the desire to belong. Belonging fills the heart with peace, security and joy. Knowing there is a place we fit and are able to receive and contribute brings a sense of fulfillment.

Belonging is our primary human need. Beyond food and shelter, nothing promotes human flourishing like having a people and place of belonging.

When the peaceful feeling of belonging is challenged, our emotions can quickly rise up. The quest to belong fuels the intense reactions to whatever threatened our sense of belonging. Simple things such as being overlooked with an invitation, a thoughtless word aimlessly directed or distracted reactions from others can threaten the sense of belonging and quickly send us spiraling. Our emotions fill us with ways to react and if we are not careful can consume us and bring harm to relationships. 

A better solution to treasure and cherish those spaces of belonging is to simply pause and identify the threat and evaluate if is it real or perceived. Our minds and imaginations can fool us! Before our first reaction which usually is a defense - what is the truth and how can we allow truth to prevail?

For the Christian, we know that in Christ, we can find true belonging: True belonging is being fully known and being fully loved.

A current study I am involved in shares about God as Father: 
"God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men."

Biblical insight into how and where we belong brings us full circle. When we belong to God, our longings are fulfilled and we can then fully belong and dedicate offering to others. Contributing to the good of others is a source of fulfillment and guards us against the dangers of emotional guardship. When we take the focus off our own need for belonging, and create space for others to belong, we find ourselves surrounded by those happy to have us in their lives.

In Christ, we can find true belonging, for true belonging is being simultaneously fully known and fully loved. When we’re secure in Christ, we’ll be established and rooted in how He has made us, and we will belong to Him.. We can become who we were meant to be—fully adopted and secure children of God. We “come home” to ourselves in this significant sense. The layers of protection that have surrounded us like shells can begin to fall away, and true spiritual transformation can begin.

We belong not to ourselves but to God, and through Him, to Hs people. At long last, our search for true belonging can have a happy ending. In Christ and among His people, we’re fully known and fully loved.