A Place to Belong

Deep down we all long to be accepted and pursued. We yearn for a place to belong. This longing is also accompanied by a deep sense of rejection when we feel as if we don’t fit in or seem to be forgotten by others—when you don’t get called back after the interview, when someone else gets the promotion, when you don’t make the team, when everyone around you seems to be bringing home their babies and your arms feel heavy with emptiness. 

But dear sister, please hear this: as your friends are posting pictures of beautifully decorated nurseries while yours remains empty, as the moms in your community meet together, and they don’t think to include you because your child is no longer on earth, as you feel the weight of loneliness because it seems as though no one can relate to the sorrow you have experienced. If you have accepted Christ as your Savior you are a part of a royal priesthood. In Christ, you belong. You have been accepted—chosen—by the God that created the universe and holds it all in place. 

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
1 Peter 2:9-10

Because Christ was your substitute on the cross, you are accepted and part of a chosen people, a people who belong to God.

Everything you are, all of your faith and hope, is deeply rooted in the fact that God freely chose you. Before the creation of the world God thought of you. He fixed His eyes on you and chose you for Himself. Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). Behind your faith in Christ is grace alone. There is no ground for your being chosen besides the incomprehensible love of God. You did absolutely nothing to qualify for being chosen.

God did not choose you because of anything you have done or anything you will do. He did not choose you because He saw something special in you. He did not choose you because you were good, but so that you could become holy, blameless, and pure. And here’s the beauty in this—because you have done nothing to deserve being chosen by God, your acceptance is caught up in the constancy of the character of God. He will not reject those whom He has chosen.

Your salvation did not begin with your choice to believe in Christ—although this choice is real and necessary. Your salvation began before the foundation of the world when God sketched out the story of our redemption, appointed the death and the resurrection of His Son, and chose you to be His own through Christ. This truth offers us deep assurance. Will you revel in this wonder?

Being chosen by God, offers us the fullest satisfaction, because we were designed to find our acceptance not in shared experiences with others, not in earthly recognition, and not in front of the mirror, but in the face of God!

Some of you have been sitting on the fence of faith for far too long. Turn your heart to Him, dear one. He is pursuing you, like a father longing for His child to come home to Him. He longs for you to cast your hope upon Him. Maybe you feel unworthy of the gift of salvation that has been offered to you. You are. But the unfathomable truth is that God chose those who are foolish, weak, low, and despised—so that we would have no grounds for boasting in our salvation (1 Corinthians 1:26-29). 

Do you feel Him tugging at your heart? Only God’s steadfast resolution to save His chosen people can explain the miracle of placing your trust in the word of the gospel in the midst of sorrow and affliction. Do you understand the incredible reality of this truth? God does the saving work for His chosen ones. God puts us together with Christ. The unshakable, unbiased, and glorious bedrock of your faith is that God chose you, and in choosing you, God means to bring you home. Being chosen by God means being sealed for everlasting, all-satisfying life with our infinitely beautiful God. Because you are chosen, you will one day join your precious baby in the song of eternal praise in the presence of God.

So when you feel like you stick out like a sore thumb because of the loss you have experienced, remember that you have been chosen. You don’t need to be defined by your sorrow. Your identity is caught up in the very Son of God! Remind yourself over and over again who you are in Christ. Say it out loud. Shout it! You have been chosen! In Christ, you belong. And God desires to pour out blessings on His chosen people.   

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”
Ephesians 1:3-4

In Christ, you have been given every spiritual blessing. While these blessings don’t always look the way we want them to, they are always what is best for us. The sorrows of this world will indeed seem light and momentary when compared to all that He has in store for you. And on that day when you finally see Him face to face, you—chosen one—will have every tear wiped from your eye, as you will join in the eternal song of adoration and praise of the One who has redeemed you—the song that your precious baby is singing even now.