On Sunday, my pastor spoke on Ephesians 2:11-22, a beautiful passage about belonging. I think we can all relate to that feeling of outsider-ness, and that deep desire to belong to something, to be included, and known, to have a place.

I’m not sure exactly what you’re longing for today, what group you’re longing to belong to. The “married” group. The “with children” group. The “with more children” group. The “home owner” group. The “following your dreams” group. The “out of debt” group. The “amazing wardrobe” group. The “clear skin” group. The “super cool” group. The “stable job” group. The “non-sucky” group. The “better body” group. The “super achiever” group. The “good cook” group. The “remarkable Christian” group. The “sell a few more books” group. (These are all hypotheticals, of course).

What I realized as I sat in church on Sunday—and it hit me all at once and out of nowhere—is that the answer to everything I long for, at the core, is simply and ultimately Christ. The root of all my longings leads to him. I love this and hate this at the same time.

I love it because it is simple. These deep longings I feel—for freedom and love and hope and space and success and meaning—are ultimately found and completed in him. He is really the only answer. I hate it because I want more tangible solutions that I can control and contrive (if I’m honest). I don’t want to have to wade through the mystery that is Christ.

I recently came across this Lewis quote that I’m trying to chew on and reconcile: “It was when I was happiest that I longed most. . . . The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing. . . . to find the place where all the beauty came from” (Till We Have Faces).

Hmmmmmm . . . what does that mean? I think it means that we long to better understand the source of all beauty, we long to belong to that source, to be deeply connected to it. The longing is sweet, because ultimately, it points us to God.

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14).

We are no longer wandering in exile. We are connected to a deep belonging. And yet, we miss it so much, don’t we? What if we could reframe longing into something beautiful instead of something beguiling?