Belonging

Belonging is such a funny thing. Social situations, finding a place to live, family, knowing your spiritual home- we all have our place. But so often it doesn’t feel like it. I have a friend who talks about a situation and the upshot of it was that they felt that they weren’t wanted, so they left. While it may have been in the end, because of a whole lot of miscommunication, it certainly wasn’t the case in the beginning. It had such huge potential. For me, belonging is such a vital thing. And while it’s nice to belong to a collective big group or community, I find it easier to navigate knowing I have a small tight knit group of friends there. They don’t need to always physically need to be there and present, but it’s nice to know they are there, and close by if we ever need each other. Sadly often, large group situations are often the loneliest places, where you can feel like you least belong.

In Vineyard churches, we often mention the phrase, ‘you can belong before you believe’. The inference being that you can belong to the community before you believe in Jesus and have a relationship with him. I wonder if we can belong….before we believe we belong. Even in church communities there are the ‘cool’ groups, and the whole spectrum of groups of people. Its not perfect, but that’s not the point. We are all human, and as such, fallible, and perfect too in our relationship with Jesus. No church will ever meet every one of our needs, but hopefully, we will know it to be a spiritual home, and as such, will be able to find our place in it all, and be a part of helping to make it a better place for each other, and a safe place to invite others into the ‘family’ so we can better travel this journey together.

Having recently gone through a particularly lonely situation recently, I was challenged to think through the whole concept of belonging all over again, and realized what a fundamental lie it is for us to believe, for my friend, for myself, in any situation. If we don’t feel like we belong, we can leave, quit, we can shirk our responsibility, and in the end leave a hole where we should have been. Jesus died so we might have a place to belong permanently now and forever.

The Bible of course, is littered with the theme of belonging, of having a promised land, a people to belong to, a family. For us now too, Jesus specifically talks about us being one body and many parts, and of each part doing its bit(1 Corinthians 12). If we don’t feel that we belong, the whole body misses out. It’s handicapped. Something is stolen from the individual and the community.

I could list of all the stories and references, but there are so many, so I won’t, but for my own sanity, and reminder, I hope to make a list of relevant verses to remind myself and others that we are each important, chosen, we belong.

We belong