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Saturday, April 9, 2011

How do you know you're loved? Acceptance

Well, I'm not here to talk about the 5 love languages. Even though they do have some value. Maybe you don't even know what I'm talking about. Good.

In order to know you are loved you have to feel worth it. You have to know you're accepted. This is all part of a deeper, grander struggle going on. Knowing you're accepted in a group of friends, a society, a club, a team, a family, a relationship. We all need to be known. Often these groups come with requirements. You have to be talented, skilled, look a certain way or be genetically related. Say you wanted to join a team but were in fact terrible at the sport, not only would you not be accepted, you would experience rejection. Rejection is a terrible fear we have.

Are these social structures we have created to "fit in" really just ways to hide? Even the most outrageous, unthoughtful teen movie usually admits to this falsehood. While we all wander around trying to fit in to the shapes we think we are, like those children's toys that have squares, circles and triangles - we have lost what it even means to belong. How do you belong in a culture that has cultivated individuality, even among the most intimate structures (marriage, e.g.)?

Right now I am working through defining true community with my future room mates. We want to establish a way of living that is focused on spiritual disciplines and intentional, communal, living. It's scary. When I really think about it, it freaks me out. I wanted to keep my spiritual disciplines all to myself. Now I have to share. Living this way, we think, will truly bring a sense of "knowing" each other, and ultimately, knowing God. Pushing through the brokenness, and getting serious about what it means to live in the Kingdom.

I love the roller coaster - but I can hear the ticking as the car rises to the top, and I know I am in for a wild ride.

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