You Belong to Me

          I dropped my 15yr. old granddaughter, Emma, off at school this morning.  We sat in a line of cars whose mission was the same as ours--get the kid to school on time.  Students on foot passed us, about a half dozen of them, couples, walking hand in hand or arm in arm.  Aren't they too young for this?  I wanted to cover Emma's eyes and tell her not to want that.
          Adolescent love--these kids don't even have well developed friendship skills yet.  But the hormones rage; insecurities abound; drama is prized; a sense of belonging is coveted.
          Belonging.  What a beautiful word and how we all long for the warnth and security and
identity-defining aspects of belonging to someone.  Psychologists have posited that the appeal of gangs is the need to belong.  How tragic the lengths we'll go to and the compromises we'll make and the lousy substitutes we'll accept to seek the fulfillment of belonging to someone.
          God understands this basic human longing. I expect he created it with high purposes in mind and that it is a part of our being made in his image.  He has provided for us richly in this need to belong.  He assures us in I Peter 2:9  that as Christians we are "a people belonging to God."  Romans 1:6 lets us know that we have been "called to belong to Christ."  And just so we have visible, concrete connections right here with our feet in the dirt, he gives us a spiritual family to be a part of:

Romans 12:5
So, in Christ we...form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

          I love this!  You belong to me.  I belong to you.  This gives me such a happy heart!