"Longing for Belonging"

         

Scanning the picture posts on the social media, Facebook, I noticed a common theme this morning… “back-to-school” smiles beaming at proud parents hiding tears behind the camera lens. Someday, those smiling children will look at their pictures and will likely give themselves an embarrassed laugh… “Look at my hair, my glasses, my missing teeth, or my crazy clothes.”

Although kids are confronted with crowded school hallways, overly weighted down backpacks, deceptively decorated food called “lunch”, and adjustments to new surroundings, there is even a greater internal quest lurking beneath the surface. “Who will be my friends?” and “Where will I find acceptance?” or “Will they like me?” It is out of the center of human exigency, we have the innate “longing to belonging.”

As early as 1943, Abraham Maslow’s included this concept in his model “Hierarchy of Needs” as the need to find belonging, love, and acceptance. According to Maslow’s theory, the only greater human needs than belonging are those of physiological and security needs. Modern social scientists have attempted to define the human need for social dependency by creating the term, “belongingness” defined as “the quality or state of being an essential or important part of something.”

Jesus gathered to himself circles of family, friends, and acquaintances of varying degrees of closeness to support his own human need of “belongingness.” In return, Jesus’ capacity to express genuine love and acceptance satisfied the same appetite felt by others.

When Jesus knew he would soon be departing this life and leaving an “empty space” in the lives of his disciples, he prayed to the Heavenly Father, “Just as you are in me and I am in you… May they also be in us.” (John 17:21) The disciples were unaware of the great emptiness and loneliness they were about to experience as Jesus left them with this Godly promise, “I will never leave you.” (Hebrews 13:5) Jesus encouraged his companions, “Do not let your hearts be troubled” and “I am going to prepare a place for you…that you may be where I am.” (John 14:1,2)

We all have a desperate aching that drives us toward intimacy and relationships, which can only be satisfied by “being one with the Father and His Son.” Intimacy with the Father is the only true solution to “belongingness.” Once we can discover the love and acceptance of the heavenly Father, we can then confidently communicate that same “belongingness” to include others in our circles of “belonging.”

Be on the watch for someone who is expressing a “longing for belonging” and share the joy of acceptance.