So here we are, real characters in this ‘grand epic’, this amazing story of God’s.  Do you ever feel like you didn’t get here during the prologue?  Like you’ve arrived in chapter 2?  It appears that everyone, but you, already has a role.  Everyone knows exactly what’s going on, but you can’t find your lines?  Like the place you need to be, and the people you need to know, are just out of your grasp.  You’ve almost got it, but not quite.

So you wait in the margins, hoping to be invited into the story before the plot thickens and gets too deep.  You’re afraid there is no more room left for yet another character and story line.

Why is standing alone on the sidelines so hard?  For everyone?  We all want to be included.  We all want to be there at the beginning of the story.  It’s universal.  Did you ever wonder why?  When people are so diverse, why does everyone hate being left out?

We’ve already looked at this verse during the introduction to this series, but let’s take another glance…

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  Genesis 1:26

Do you see it?  Right there in that verse.  God has never been alone.  He has always been the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  God has always been in fellowship.  Before the beginning of time.  Forever.  Always.

And who did He make in His image? 

You. 

Me.

And everybody else. 

To be with others is our innate, natural design, and when we can’t find our people or our place to belong, we feel it in our inner being.  We instinctively know that something isn’t right.  The longing to belong is inherent to us all because we are created in God’s image, the Trinity.

Now that we’ve explored Genesis a bit, and looked at Adam’s story, and discovered the much bigger epic Story, I think we can answer a few of the questions from the first day.

1. Where does the need to belong to a place originate?  God has put eternity into our hearts.  We long for heaven, and nothing here on earth can ever completely satisfy that longing.
2. Why do we strive to find our people?  We are created in the image of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  To be with others is the way we are “wired”.
3.  Does everyone feel the same way, this need to belong?  Yep, pretty much, to one degree or another.  No one is exempt because we all have the same Creator.

We need a place.

We need people.

We need to belong.

And when we don’t, we spend our lives “in the margins”, never quite stepping into the character God intended for us to be.  But the pages of the Story keep turning.  I want to find my role, don’t you?

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to search out some of the reasons why we don’t always “fit”.  We’re going to be open and honest.  Yep, transparency is what we’re going for — it might get a little uncomfortable.  I know it will for me because transparency isn’t my thing.  Hmm… that sounds like a clue, doesn’t it?  We’ll also look at people who seem to do this belonging thing effortlessly.  Maybe we can learn something from them.

If you are just joining us today, you can read more about God’s epic Story here (A Grand Epic).

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