Do I Matter? The Significance of Belonging

There is a question buried deep within every human heart: Do I matter?

We may never put it into words, but much of our lives are spent trying to answer it. We want to know that we are noticed, valued and loved. We want to feel that there is a place where we belong and people among whom we are at home.

Perhaps that is why rejection hurts so deeply. To be left out, forgotten or treated as though we do not matter touches something very deep within us. The opposite is also true. There are few experiences more life-giving than knowing that someone sees us, welcomes us and is glad that we are there.

From our earliest days, belonging is fundamental to being human. A newborn child needs more than food and physical care. A child needs to be held, spoken to, smiled at and reassured: You are safe. You are wanted. You belong.

That need does not disappear when we grow older. We find belonging in family, friendship, marriage, community and church. We discover it whenever someone says, in one way or another, “You are one of us.”

But there is a danger here. When our own belonging feels insecure, we can sometimes strengthen it by excluding others. We create boundaries between “us” and “them”. We may become suspicious of people who are different from us—different in nationality, culture, language, background or beliefs. Human beings have often discovered a sense of unity by finding someone to blame or exclude.

The Christian gospel offers us another way.

The Bible begins by telling us that we are created in the image of God. Before we achieve anything, possess anything or prove anything, we are God’s creatures, known and loved by God.

And in Jesus Christ we hear an even more extraordinary invitation. We are not merely tolerated by God. We are welcomed. We are invited into God’s family and called to become a people who welcome one another.

This changes the question.

Perhaps the deepest answer to “Do I matter?” is not found in our achievements, popularity or usefulness. It is found in the astonishing truth that we matter to God.

And if I know that I belong to God, I do not have to spend my life desperately proving that I belong somewhere else.