Back Roads To Belonging By Kristen StrongSample

Kristen Strong: Back Roads to Belonging Devotional Day 1

“Start Believing You Already Belong”

Scripture reading: Ephesians 1:3-14

Maybe you’re a mama who feels you’re on the outside of the booster club at your kids’ school. Maybe you’re a daughter who dared to go against the family mantra and is now outside the once-upon-a-time welcoming circle of home. Maybe you’re an empty nester who fears you’re now on the outside of your children’s lives. Or the retiree who believes you’ve outlived your usefulness and are on the outside of all those young’uns around you.

You and me, we don’t want to feel like we don’t belong. So what can we do to not feel that way?

First of all, we can know that Jesus totally understands this and considers it a valid feeling, not a crybaby move. From his birth outside the inn, Jesus experienced what it was like to be on the outside. Yet he still lived as one very much accepted, because he was accepted by his Father. He didn’t worry about being on the outside looking in. He was on the outside looking up.

The same is true for us. As Ephesians 1 reminds us, we are chosen and adopted in Christ right here, right now. And our Lord wants to walk alongside us down the meandering back-road way as we feel and know our own sense of belonging. 

Second, if we want to feel that we belong, we need to know that being in is not something to achieve but something to receive. It is first receiving the truth that God does not dish out leftovers to any of us. Psalm 33:5 in The Message states that the earth is “drenched in God’s affectionate satisfaction.” Drenched, it says. And no Bible translation is going to include a clause stating except for ______ with your name at the end.

We’re each under the shower of blessings, and we’re not left out to dry. Grasping this truth is also grasping the contented life no matter where we are and in what circles we move—or don’t move.

By the time you finish these seven devotions, I pray you’re able to own a stronger sense of acceptance and belonging in your heart and life. Because Jesus came for you, you’re already in, in every way that counts.

Belong blessing: May where you want to belong, dear one, and where God calls you to belong be one and the same.