Personal Development on Belonging

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Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald

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That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.

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Defining Home

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

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Scripture

Ephesians 2:19-22, John 14:2-3, Hebrews 11:13-16, 2 Corinthians 5:1, Psalm 23:6, Revelation 21:3

In her book Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home , Jen Pollock Michel reflects on the nature of home in a transient age. In this short excerpt, Michel focuses on etymology of home in v...

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Break Our Hearts

Author

Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia

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Ezekiel 36:24-28, Psalm 51:1-17, Jeremiah 31:31-34

Break our hearts, Jesus That we may weep as You weep Love as You love Break our hearts Jesus and raise our voices that we may speak and act so all may be safe so all may have opportunity so all may k...

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Blessing Students as They Return to School

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Welcoming One, we welcome you and we welcome another school year. Thank you for the blessings of learning and growing, thinking and creating, reasoning and discovering. Fulfill these blessings in ever...

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Prayer for Families

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Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who who creates families for our belonging: We ask for your continual care for the homes in which your people live. Keep them from all bitterness, arrogance, and the...

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God’s Gifts to Immature People

Author

R. Paul Stevens

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Scripture

Psalm 127:3, Ephesians 6:4, Colossians 3:21

Children are God’s gifts to immature people to help them grow up. They are also God’s gifts to help parents go deep with God. . . . Parenting is not for anything. It is not a contract with God in whic...

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The Most Common Complaint

Author

Matt Haig

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1 Kings 19:1-18, Psalm 88:null, Psalm 102:7, Isaiah 53:3, Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 15:11-32

A therapist once told me that the most common complaint he heard from his patients was the feeling that they didn’t belong. The feeling of being an imposter, or of being outside things, of not fitting...

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Gwendolyn Brooks

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We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.

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Alan Jacobs

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There can be more genuine fellowship among those who share the same disposition than among those who share the same beliefs, especially if that disposition is toward kindness and generosity

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Twenty-Somethings Clarifying their Identity

Author

Gordon MacDonald

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When I engaged with twenty-somethings, for example, who were just entering the adult years, I found them preoccupied with clarifying their identity. What kind of a man or woman am I becoming, they w...

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The Gift of an Invitation

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Ruth Haley Barton

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Isaiah 55:1–3, Exodus 3:1–12, Proverbs 9:1–6, Matthew 11:28–30, John 1:35–39, Psalm 3:4:8

One of the reasons I love a good invitation is that I get tired of being told what to do. As the very responsible oldest daughter of a pastor and someone who entered vocational ministry at a young age...

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Inspired by 2 Corinthians 1:20-22

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Austin D. Hill

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2 Corinthians 1:20-22

All of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ. It is God who gives us the ability to stand firm. God has commissioned us. And God has identified us as his own By placing the Holy Spirit in o...

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Author

John Calvin

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Scripture

Psalm 100:3, Romans 14:8, 1 John 3:1-6, 1 Corinthians 6:19, Romans 8:15, Psalm 24:1, John 17:9

We are not our own: therefore, let us not set our own will as our rule, but submit ourselves wholly to God.

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Recognizing Her Own

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Isaiah 49:15, John 10:14, Luke 12:6-7, Psalm 139:1-3, 2 Timothy 2:19, Isaiah 43:1, Matthew 10:29-31, Psalm 91:4, Deuteronomy 32:11, Job 39:1-2, Luke 15:4-6

The guillemot, a small Arctic seabird, nests in dense colonies on the rocky cliffs of the North Atlantic and Arctic. Thousands of these birds gather in tight spaces, with hundreds of females laying th...

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Author

N. T. Wright

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As a newborn baby breathes and cries, so the signs of life in a newborn Christian are faith and repentance, inhaling the love of God and exhaling an initial cry of distress. And at that point what God...

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The Bar and the Church

Author

Keith Miller and Bruce Larson

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Scripture

Matthew 9:10-13, Luke 15:11-32, Romans 3:23-24, 1 John 1:8-9

The neighborhood bar is possible the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give his church. It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality, but...

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The Conversational Topper

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

James 1:9, Philippians 2:3-4, Proverbs 3:18, Romans 12:15, James 1:19

Have you ever been guilty of being a “conversational topper”? The topper is someone who, when another confides a challenge or shares an exciting event, immediately connects that event to their own li...

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Free to Love and Be Loved

Author

Lisa Sharon Harper

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Scripture

Hosea 1:null, Hosea 2:null, Hosea 3:null, Matthew 16:18, Mark 10:13-16, John 3:16, Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:9-10, Ephesians 2:4-5, Acts 4:9-10, Acts 13:9

Here’s a testimony from Lisa Sharon Harper, author of The Very Good Gospel: Harper grew up as a child of a single mother. After her parents divorced, she and her mother moved from Philadelphia where ...

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Wanted by God

Author

Lisa Sharon Harper

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Scripture

John 10:10, Jeremiah 31:3, Luke 15:11-32, Psalm 147:3, Isaiah 43:1

Lisa Sharon Harper shares a powerful testimony in her book, The Very Good Gospel. Her story is that she grew up the child of a single mother after her parents divorced. After the divorce she and her ...

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Author

Norman Wirzba

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Attention

Practicing attention, people can now receive their world as a place of belonging.

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Adapted from Malachi 2 and 3

Author

Austin D. Hill

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Scripture

Malachi 2:

Has not the one God made you? We belong to God in body and in spirit And what does the one God seek? To be on our guard and to be faithful. The Lord will send his messenger, The Lord, whom w...

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Dear Lord, we come before You today as

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Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

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Scripture

Genesis 1:27-28, Psalm 104:24-25, Romans 8:14-16, 1 John 3:1-3, Genesis 1:1-31, Hebrews 11:3, John 1:1-3

Dear Lord, we come before You today as Your children. We praise You as the God of all creation and the giver of life. You have made us, saved us, and called us to be Your people and to serve in Your K...

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This Place is Enough

Author

Jenny Odell

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Scripture

Hebrews 10:24-25, 1 Thessalonians 5:11, 1 John 4:11-12, Philippians 4:11-13, 1 Timothy 6:6-8

A simple refusal motivates my argument: refusal to believe that the present time and place, and the people who are here with us, are somehow not enough. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram act li...

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Healing Wounds Never Spoken Can Lead to Spiritual Breakthroughs

Author

James Bryan Smith

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Scripture

Genesis 16:7-13, Isaiah 49:15-16 , Jeremiah 1:5, John 9:1-3 , Romans 8:15-16, Psalm 27:10

Dawn grew up in a family in which she felt she had a fairly happy childhood. But in her adult years she struggled greatly with emotional, psychological, and physical maladies. She never felt a sense o...

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Author

Brené Brown

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Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging an...

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Packing a Coffin with Your Belongings

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Imagine being so committed to going to the mission field that you bought a one-way ticket to your destination and packed your worldly goods in a coffin, knowing you’d never come home. That is what A. ...

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Holding on to the Extreme

Author

Linda Evans Shepherd

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Scripture

Matthew 6:19-21, 1 Timothy 6:9-10, Luke 12:15, Matthew 16:26

Have you ever seen an episode of the A&E TV show Hoarders? It’s a show about perfectly normal-looking people who live in perfectly normal-looking houses who become overwhelmed by their possessions...

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Author

Brené Brown

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Connection gives purpose and meaning to our lives.

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Knowing our Being and the Ground of Being

Author

David G. Benner

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Martin Heidegger said that being is presence. Whatever else this means, it suggests that in some way presence is a basic property of simply being. Everything that exists has presence by virtue of its ...

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