Sense of Belonging: Prodigal Son

Referring to our latest blog we made this statement:

Since God alone can KNOW and LOVE us unconditionally, we can only BELONG to God.

We concluded a brief discussion of the statement with this: No other belonging can compare. But even with God, belonging still amounts to KNOWING, LOVING, and SHARING LIFE (which includes sharing PURPOSE) –

Thomas G Belt: From personal email. Shared with permission.   

This “sense” of belonging may be best represented by the story of the prodigal son. The end of the prodigal son’s story is that no matter what the son did to reject his family, to disavow his belonging to his family, and to cut off his family from his presence, he still belonged. And then, to bring, at his own hand, his life to complete and utter ruin and finally return home to his family, he found that his belonging was never cut off from him. His father still accepted and loved his son. He belonged. He knew in the moment he saw his father run to him that he was never, ever, for even a second, rejected, ostracized or cut off from his family. Instead, he was welcomed home as though only coming home from a long journey. e as though only coming home from a long journey. We need this sense of belonging down, way down, deep in the core of our being. It is the strength of relationship with Him that we are able to persevere and grow in faith.

God must also have this need, this want of belonging, too. It can’t be only one-sided. It can’t be that He did everything He did to redeem and justify and sanctify us, without also fulfilling His own longing for our fellowship, too.  

We have works to do and we’re going to need faith to do them!  

**(See earlier blogs for more on God’s plan for you  or buy the book “From Here …By Faith”)