The Inner Ring

The Inner Ring

One of the simplest, most basic desires of the human heart is to belong. Whether it’s the cool lunch table in junior high or the best grown-up neighborhood, we long to be in the inner ring—not somewhere on the periphery.

I thought I was over this; I’m not, entirely. I still feel thirteen and not quite cool enough when I don’t get the girls’ trip invites or when I hear about the party after the fact. I pretend I’m fine with it. But it still stings.

Spending time with three hundred high school kids who’ve traveled a long way from home for camp, I see the inner-ring drama unfold in tiny ways. I see the boy who hangs back and hides his eyes under a hat indoors and out; the girl whose clothes are long outgrown; the young woman whose walker slows her from every churning clump of kids she might enjoy and keeps her moving cautiously along with a counselor by her side. I see the six-foot-four athlete who flounders in the deep end of the swimming pool yet spurns the hands of those who reach out to help him. They’re all outside—and they know it. But they must long with all their hearts to be in.

We’re human. We want in.

The good news is this: the God who is in himself Father, Son, and Holy Spirit welcomes us. He wants us to live in the inner ring of his perfect love. He asks, and we need no other invitation. He befriends, and we need no other patron. In truth, the tightest circle, the sweetest clan, the finest fellowship is open to us, not closed, by the gracious invitation of Jesus.

Are you lonely, in need of grace, dying to be known and loved? Come. Are you unsure of which way to turn, longing for tenderness, ready for adventure? Come. The table is set. The invitation is extended. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit form the one true and perfect ring that opens to welcome you inside.

God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 Corinthians 1:9, NIV