To belong. It is the component that leads each of us to collective ground. The need creates a place where we stand unified, completely grasping what is ingrained within us. Here our dissimilarities wane, and we feel connection, because together our desires become parallel. We are privileged to be divergent. To have been blessed with assorted strengths, and varying weaknesses, all from a loving Father in Heaven, who allows us to be distinctive. And not only allows us, but utterly delights in our uniqueness and originality. He celebrates our abilities, and labors along side us in enhancing our imperfections. Yet, in this one area, we fuse, simultaneously yearning. Although there are variations of intensities, it all can be found within each one of us.
Seeking to belong is inherent. If we remember where we came from, our understanding of this universal need becomes much less complicated. There was a time where each of us, completely belonged. We fit. We were in our rightful place. We were thought of. Remembered. We were home. We were loved. Loved with a perfect love. This love outweighs anything we could ever reach or experience in this earthly sphere. It occupied our hearts so entirely, that it flooded through our body, and we had a sense of being complete. Safe. Sufficient. And we recognized, we belong, right there aside that love that consumed us so perfectly. Can you imagine it? I must confess, I cannot. But I ache to recollect.
In this vast world, it becomes easy for us to feel small. Insignificant. Forgotten. It embarks in our minds, and if not cautious, it scurries through our veins, and secures to the very middle of us. If we do not work to dispel it from our hearts, it will become ineradicable. It becomes a part of us. An element of who we are. Imagine the implications that we meet as we approach that disastrous position. The greatest of which, a loss of identity. No longer do we recognize ourselves as a divine child of God, but as a inconsequential mortal. One that is of no value; one who simply does not belong. Understanding that psychologists term the need of belongingness to one of the basic motivational factors relating to human behavior, we can comprehend what this would do to the way we exist during this earthly opportunity. It depletes us. It takes those remarkable strengths, given to us individually to bless ourselves and others, and demolishes them. It disassembles who we are, and what we are intended to become.
The most crucial factor of this sequence is for us to come to the recognition of who the leader of this pathway is. It is Satan, the Prince of Darkness himself, that guides us along. In some instances we might even find that he is escorting us hand in hand. He endeavors to replace our feelings of belonging with thoughts of abandonment. He hankers for us to become consumed by his self-proclaimed “excellence”, that we forget we have our own. Why? Because it is in these moments that we feel overlooked, unsuitable, alone. Once we have lost our sense of belonging, we search for somewhere, anywhere, that will make us feel remembered. The places we turn to fill in the emptiness of our soul, are only worldly distractions that will never provide the sense of devotion we so yearn for. We cannot allow Satan to fill our voids with his diversions. Nor can we allow him to make us believe that we have been forsaken, for it could not be further from the truth.
Our Omnipotent Savior is well versed in Satan’s weapons. He understood that our lives would provide these moments of insufficiency. He sought for us to know the truth of His commitment to us:
Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me (Isaiah 49:15-16)
This world, at times, can seem like an isolated place. The impact of being lonely can be severe on our hearts and spirits. Unfortunately, Satan also knows of the influence it can have on us. He revels in placing daggers of inadequacy and desolation within us. But as we come to have confidence, and faith, in the words spoken by our Comforter, we will receive a heightened amount of peace in our lives. Those daggers will be rejected from our hearts, and our souls will permit them no more. We will come to the realization that we are never forgotten, nor forsaken. The very palms of His hands stand as a remembrance of us. Each of us, has an individualized piece in the nail marks that lay upon him. We are truly graven upon the palms of his hands, for His atoning sacrifice was done for us. Not collectively, but individually. We are continually before Him.
Although he has these visual reminders of us, we should also recall that He does not need them to know who we are. He knows us better than we understand ourselves. He is familiar with our minds, our hearts, our spirits. He knows our name, our desires, our fears, our needs. We are not trivial to Him, nor have we ever been. As we ponder upon these words that He has spoken to us, we will be elevated, and will find ourselves with the capacity to repudiate the forces of Satan. We will be replenished with a sense of love, a sense identity, a sense of belonging. And if we do find ourselves in moments of deficiency, feeling as though we are incongruous with everything that surrounds us, the very blades of Satan piercing our distressing hearts, we can cry unto Him. Those holy, perforated hands, will encircle us. His perfect love will shatter the inferiorities we may believe exist. We will have a conviction of where we belong. For it is within His hands that we are graven upon. We will discover that this knowledge will start in our minds, and if nurtured, will hasten through our veins, and fasten to the very middle of us. The only thing that will be left for us to contemplate: Do we, too, provide Him with a place of belonging?
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