He didn’t need us. He wanted us. And that changes everything.
I’ve just begun listening to Dr. Michael Heiser’s book, What Does God Want? And the title of Chapter One stopped me cold: “God Wanted a Family.”
Not needed. Wanted.
That distinction matters.
A God Who Wants Without Lacking
We live in a world that conflates wanting with needing, desire with deficiency. We assume that if someone wants something, it’s because they’re missing it, that there’s a hole somewhere, and the wanting is a symptom.
But God doesn’t work that way.
He is not lonely. He is not incomplete. He lacks nothing. When God wanted a family – when He created human life, plant life, animal life, the entire vast universe – He wasn’t filling a void. Revelation 4:11 says He created all things for His pleasure. Not for His survival. Not to compensate for some inadequacy. Simply because He wanted to.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Wanting things isn’t the same as being greedy or needy. When I stop to count what God has provided for my wants – my family and friends, hot and cold running water, a comfortable house, my car, my favorite foods, this computer, a good book to listen to, a bed to sleep in – I realize the list goes on far longer than I can hold in my head at once. None of those things indicate that I am deficient because I want them. They are gifts from a God who takes pleasure in giving good things.
He wanted us. And because He wanted us, He made us. It’s that simple. And that amazing!
The Eagerly Waiting Connection
About a month ago I wrote about the wonderful fact that God listens to our prayers even when we feel unworthy. The heart of that post was the power of belonging – that we are not strangers knocking on a foreign door when we pray, but family coming home. (Why God Listens to Our Prayers When We Feel Unworthy)
The name of this website, Eagerly Waiting, comes from Hebrews 9:28: Christ will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to bring salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for Him.
That word eagerly has always struck me. It isn’t passive. It isn’t reluctant. It’s the waiting of someone who genuinely wants Him to come, who has thought about it, who longs for it, who is oriented toward it the way a child orients toward a parent coming home.
But here’s a question that occurs to me: do you eagerly wait for someone you haven’t fully committed yourself to?
I don’t think so. The people who eagerly await the return of Jesus Christ are the people for whom belonging has gone both directions. They know He is theirs, and they know they are His. They have stood up for Him, defended His name and His people and His Word in a world that often didn’t want to hear it. They’ve lived under His banner on purpose, not just taken shelter in His shadow when things got hard.
The eager waiting of Hebrews 9:28 isn’t the waiting of a stranger hoping for rescue. It’s the waiting of a family member who can’t wait to see someone they deeply love come through the door.
Wanting Him Back
Here’s the point: belonging should be reciprocal.
We need to feel about God the way He feels about us.
Not because He needs our defense. He is fully capable of defending Himself, His name, His Word, His people. He doesn’t require our protection any more than He requires our existence. But just as His wanting us says something profound about His character, our wanting Him – fiercely, loyally, eagerly – says something profound about ours.
I should be as thrilled to defend Him as He is to defend me. I should feel a sense of ownership in this relationship. The kind that makes you bristle when someone insults your family or their interests, that makes you stand up and be counted when it would be easier to stay seated.
And God’s interests are wide. His sovereignty. His principles. His Word. His Name. His people, both Jews and Christians. When any of those are attacked or dismissed or mocked, my belonging to Him means I have a stake in it. Not out of obligation. Out of love.
I Am My Beloved’s and He Is Mine
I remember a song we used to sing in a church I attended decades ago. It came from Song of Solomon 2:4, “His Banner Over Me Is Love.” One of the lines has stayed with me across all the years since: “I am my Beloved’s and He is mine.”
That is what reciprocal belonging sounds like.
It doesn’t merely say, I am His. It says both things, in both directions, as a single truth. The relationship isn’t one-sided. It isn’t a transaction, His protection in exchange for my obedience. It is a covenant of mutual ownership rooted in love.
God wants me to feel that. Not just to receive His love and be grateful for it, but to turn it outward. To love what He loves, to value what He values, to defend what He defends, to stand eagerly under His banner rather than reluctantly sheltering in His shadow.
The Owner’s Manual for an Abundant Life
One more thought about being a champion for God: every command God gives, every law He establishes, is ultimately for my benefit.
The Bible is, in the best possible sense, an owner’s manual.
It tells us how we are made, what we were designed for, what conditions allow us to flourish. None of it is arbitrary. None of it is God asserting authority for authority’s sake. It is a God who wanted a family, who made that family, and who then – because He wants good things for us – showed us the best way to live so we could have rich, abundant lives.
He wanted us enough to make us.
He loves us enough to guide us.
He delights in us enough to provide for our wants.
The only question that remains is whether we want Him back with the same wholehearted, banner-waving, eagerly-waiting devotion.
I know what my answer is. What’s yours?
Here are links to my blog indexes, so please click one and keep reading!
My Books, Workbooks, and Fun Books
Knowing the Unknowable One
Opening the Treasure Chest
Walking Heart-to-Heart with God
Walking Heart-to-Heart with Each Other
Fighting the Good Fight of Faith
Christian Mysteries: Why I Love Them!
List of Some Nonfiction Books You Don’t Want to Miss
Index of Assorted Topics