Sense of Belonging

In our most recent blog we ended with this:

Is there more to understanding or knowing this “sense of belonging” than going to church or paying dues at the country club? The truest forms of love, which are (when it remains a true friendship based in love and grace) and true friendship, all seem to share a few common elements:   

1.   Knowing (= truly seeing and being seen). You can’t “belong” (with/or to someone in the relational sense) if you don’t know them and aren’t known by them.

2.   Loving/Accepting (= affirming, valuing, celebrating, inviting, including, etc.).    

3.   Sharing life.    

Let’s talk about Loving/Accepting next

2.   Loving/Accepting (= affirming, valuing, celebrating, inviting, including, etc.).    

Obviously, if once you really know someone and then you reject them, or you are rejected by someone when they know you (your faults, your weaknesses, your sin), then you never “belonged.” It was always a vocational or contractual thing based on “performance,” not unconditional love and acceptance. It’s one thing to say you LOVE another when you don’t KNOW that other. It’s another thing to KNOW them and still LOVE them. Every newlywed couple starts out here, right? They’re madly in love but they don’t know a lot about their partner. Then they begin to know more about their partner (the ugly stuff, the weaknesses and struggles) and their love is challenged. From there love might be strengthened, or maybe destroyed.   

**Come back to our next blog to see more about true love and belonging, especially more about Number 3 on the list, sharing life.

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”)