In the opening pages of the Bible we have this chorus, this refrain, in creation. God is making, making, making — making the world and everything in it. The Creator is creating all the things on this planet. Like a song of praise sung on repeat, upon completion of each thing, God says “it is good,” “it is good,” “it is good.” This is the Hebrew word TOV, and it is a chorus, a refrain, throughout the opening pages of Genesis: it is good, it is good, and then the crescendo, “it is very good.”
But then suddenly the first human is alone and God says for the first time that it is not good.
“The Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone.” — Genesis 2:18
Now very often this gets misapplied, and in confusion is wrongly thought to be a sort of mandate for marriage. And then Christians can get all sorts of goofy thinking that marriage is somehow a superior state. No! Let us always remember that the greatest human who ever lived was Jesus, and he was single. So this idea that it is not good to be alone is much larger than marriage — this is about human connection. This is about belonging in all its forms, and how we were made for it, and how we need it to survive and thrive.
The house of belonging is the answer to this alienation. Belonging to our Triune God, belonging to ourselves, and belonging to one another. Jesus died to bring about this belonging in the family of God. This place called the Church is where Jesus says we practice together loving and being loved: by God, by self, and by others. Your family of origin was never meant to be your primary family. Jesus died to create the family of God, where everyone is meant to find belonging. The church is the place where we are to come home once again.
May you experience a fresh invitation to belong today.
Susie Grade 