The Truth about Finding Your Tribe

Kingdom Come Blog: Finding Your Tribe

Lost and Lonely

We live in a world with a lot of lost and lonely people. We are "more connected" than ever through the use of computers and cell phones, but somehow with all the connection many of us still feel like we're wandering the earth all alone. This is not how it should be. God created us to be in community! A word that we will be substituting for "community" today is the word "tribe".

God created Adam and placed him in the garden. After Adam had named all of the animals, he realized that there was not a suitable partner for him. God saw this and said, "'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him'" (Genesis 2:18 ESV). God made woman to be with the man. Much later in the Bible, the author of the book of Hebrews calls Christians "to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near" (Hebrews 10:24-25). We also read in Acts chapter 2, as the church is just beginning, community was absolutely crucial! These new Christians were spending a lot of time together and were looking out for one another. How can we follow their example today?

Three Animals

The turtle, the hyena and the wolf

To help illustrate how we are going to find our tribe today, I want to use an analogy with three animals: the turtle, the hyena and the wolf.

The turtle. Let us think about the turtle for a moment. When the turtle sees a threat, or is confronted by an attacker, what does it do? It goes into it's shell and hides to protect and preserve itself. What if there are other turtles around, will they help one another out? No, they all protect themselves in their dark and lonely shells.

The hyena. The hyena is a scavenger and a scoundrel and it usually travels in a pack. It enjoys going up to the turtles to poke at them and laugh at them, however, the hyena would never dare poke at the wolf because it knows that it would be torn apart.

The wolf. As the hyena leaves the turtle alone, the turtle comes out of it's shell to see another animal, well... actually a pack, or tribe of animals: wolves. The turtle sees these wolves working together, hunting together and when a threat arises the wolves protect one another, fight for one another; they would even die for one another if it came down to it.

The turtle is a coward that faces the world alone. The hyena is a coward, but another type of coward. It is wicked and cruel to those around it and it usually travels with a group of like-minded, loud bullies. The wolf is brave, willing to stand for what is right and willing to protect the tribe.

There are a lot of people in this world who could be compared to the turtle. Some who are like the hyena. And, very few who represent the wolf.

"Why are wolves so rare?" You might ask. Easy. Being a wolf is hard.

The wolf is an analogy to represent the upright, brave person who is willing to stand for what is right and True and will protect those around them. How popular is that today? And, how do people treat those who stand for what's right and True? One of the hardest parts about being a wolf is that we will have to say and do hard things that help us find enemies, enemies that hate what is True and right.

Making Enemies

Those that proclaim the Truth that is found in God's Word will be persecuted and hated (John 15 ESV). We are going to make enemies because we are not of this world. When we stand for what is right, you better bet that we will face stiff opposition because there are many in this world who hate what is right.

Let's face it. We live in a society that says tolerance and acceptance are more important than standing for what's right, but we must be willing to do it anyways. We have to accept the fact that we will make enemies on the path to find our tribe!

Three things we must do to find our tribe

Three things we must do to find our tribe: speak the Truth, open our eyes, pray to God.

In order to find our tribe, we must be willing to speak and stand for the Truth without shame.

We must also have our eyes and ears open. We must be looking for those people who stand for what is right and live the Christian life and walk the Christian walk. We ought to keep our ears open as well, so that we can hear those who proclaim God's Truth, even when it seems unpopular.

Finally, pray to God! We must pray to God that He will lead us to our tribe. Those people that we are willing to protect, fight alongside and die for as we walk in the light doing our best to represent God and glorify Him to this lost and dying world!

We must stand!

Let's combat the problem that so many face today of feeling lost and lonely by finding our tribe! We can find them, but we are going to have to be willing to do some hard things in order to do so. This life and this fight will be so much better if we have people to fight and live alongside in this journey we call life. A journey, in which we seek to draw closer to God and grow in our relationships with Him!

I whole-heartedly believe what Jesus said in John 8:31-32 that if we abide in His word, we are truly His disciples and we "will know the truth, and the truth will set [us] free." We find the Truth in God's Word and we can be set free if we will just study and look into His Word and apply it to our lives! I am going to be writing on various Biblical thoughts in this blog, and will to do my best to focus specifically on things that are affecting us today and how we can search God's Word to find the answers we need to better live our lives for Him! Feel free to subscribe to the blog if you would enjoy this type of content.