Every child born into this world, needs the assurance that he belongs to a family who wants and loves him or her. It is believed that during the first year of our lives the need to belong is very dominant. God has intended that parents play the role of fulfilling this need. If our parents failed to minister to our need to belong, as we become adults, certain social and behavioral problems may start to manifest in our lives. This deprivation may cause some "cracks" to start showing in the very foundation of our existence.
Whenever the Bible gives an account of a person, we are told either their father's name, their mother's name, or where they came from. When we meet Jeremiah the prophet in the Book of Jeremiah, we are told that he is the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. However, what gives Jeremiah his sense of being loved, wanted, and planned for is when God tells him, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart: I appointed you as a prophet to the nations" - Jeremiah 1:5. Talk about having a sense of belonging!
At the end of the day when all is said and done, there is nobody on this earth who will ever grow up with a one hundred percent feeling of belonging, and of being loved and accepted. That is because we do not live in a perfect world, and no perfect parent has been born yet. Because parents have not been brought up in perfect families, they themselves cannot be perfect parents. So everybody is brought up with a certain degree of deprivation - some more than others.
The only person that can give a human being the feeling of being completely and perfectly loved and accepted is Jesus Christ, who died for us on the Cross of Calvary out of the Father's love for us. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" - John 15:13. The only way that a parent can perfectly love their child is to let God love their child through them. Only as God fills parents with His love, can they love a child in a way that gives him/her a sense of belonging. God is able to transform the lives of those who were brought up in an environment where they did not feel like they belonged, through a personal knowledge of His Son Jesus Christ. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" - John 3:16.
Here at Morrison, we want everyone to feel a sense of belonging and find their place in God’s Kingdom. As we journey through the Christmas season may you feel the presence of God’s love and acceptance.
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