WHY YOU NEED A TRIBE

My lovely readers, have you ever been lonely and like you didn’t belong?

Haven’t you always felt like you needed a tribe, even from your first day of kindergarten? Did you wish you automatically belonged to the “cool kids” or even the “not cool kids?” I remember being on the outside looking in on the cool kid tribe at summer camp. They endlessly quoted Monty Python to each other and tight-rolled their jeans. I was a periphery person and I fantasized about firing Holy Grail quips back at them and us all laughing hysterically at my well-timed humor.  I popped my jean jacket collar just like them. I took pictures of them when they weren’t looking and kept the pictures in my diary, pretending we were just that close. (Now that I write it down, it sounds kind of stalkerish and weird.) Everybody knows that feeling of being on the outside looking in, wishing to belong. Maybe you spent many achy childhood years wishing to fit in with even just one solitary other person. Maybe you never did find a fit like that and you are still living with that ache. 

This doesn’t mean that you are insecure or weak or that you don’t know who you are. You feel this way because you are designed to belong to a tribe. It’s how you are made. We know that it’s one of God’s first documented thoughts about us-that He didn’t think we should be alone. We are made to belong. We are made to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. When we are not, when we belong only to ourselves, we are off. We will do desperate things to belong. We will also do desperate things to numb the inevitable pain that persists when we truly belong to no one and nothing. I have done the desperate things. My desperate things in years of not belonging looked self-hatred and starving myself or working so hard, fast and endlessly that I would never have to slow down to feel the full weight of loneliness I was living in. I am telling you, running from your need to belong will never, ever solve that problem. It is an element of your design that you are meant to function in.

I want to tell you why you need a tribe and what to do to find one. 

1.YOU NEED A TRIBE FOR YOUR BAD TIMES                                                                                                            “Bear one another’s burdens” does not work if there is not  “another.” If God meant for us to just lug around our own heaviness, He would have made us able to do that. We’d be just fine crying alone, every single time. We’d be cool grieving our losses without anyone knowing. He did not design us that way. He made us UN-able to do it. Have you noticed that we wear out? That we experience loneliness? That when we hurt,  deep down, we need someone to know? His intent was for us to carry things together. If you have been telling yourself that you do not need to live in community with other people, you are lying to yourself and there are probably reasons underneath that you need to figure out.

Here’s what that has looked like in my bad times. It has looked like someone to sit with me and a very sick baby in a hospital waiting room, multiple times. It has looked like groceries. It has looked like forgiveness when I have lashed out in brokenness. It has looked like someone holding me while I cried tears beyond words. It has looked like pots of soup. It has looked like listening. It has looked like confrontation. It has meant that when something bad happens to me, I know that there are “anothers” who will want to know about it so that they can bear it with me. It is what makes life doable for me. It’s the divine sharing of a load. Life is hard and living inside a tribe distributes trouble in a bearable manner.

2. YOU NEED A TRIBE FOR YOUR GOOD TIMES                                                                                                   “Rejoice with those who rejoice” does not work if there is no “with those” going on in your life.  That preposition is not “at” or “near” it is WITH, which means you have to be overjoyed about something someone else is celebrating. It is a sign of depth and maturity in a relationship when we are legitimately stoked for our friends’ successes and victories. I need more than my own story to celebrate and learn from. I NEED my take on God’s goodness broadened by what “those who rejoice” are experiencing. It gives me hope and paints a bigger, more accurately beautiful picture for me of what God is like.

Here’s what that has looked like in my good times.  It has looked like little notes of encouragement from somebody who really gets me. It has looked like praying for years for babies to come to empty arms and then finally getting to hold God’s warm, snuggly answer with gratitude leaking from my eyes. It has looked like anxiously waiting for news of biopsies, jobs, promotions, scholarships, awards and engagements and then partying like it’s my very own good news. It has looked like weddings and birthdays, toasts and finish lines. It has looked like the expansion of joy in my life, when I have truly known and loved my “those who rejoice.”

Here’s how to find your tribe.            

1.  BE TRIBEABLE                                                                                                                                                                                      If you are looking for someone to meet all of your tribey needs but haven’t made a single move towards offering yourself as potential tribe to someone else, you can forget it. It’s a two-way street. You wanna be reached out to? Then be one who reaches. Open your home. Invite people to it. Be real. Be honest. Send “how are you doing?” texts. Tell somebody you are drawn to something real about your life. Figure out the roadblocks that typically keep you from being vulnerable and do the hard internal work of uprooting them. Make no mistake, there are no guarantees that the person you reach out to will accept your tribey advance or reciprocate in any way. But if you never try, you will never find your people. Try and keep trying until you land with someone you value who cherishes that connection.

2.  BE PATIENT                                                                                                                                                                                     Tribe is not a club where you get in with the secret pass code. Tribe is built like a wall, one piece at a time, over time. A long time. There are not instant tribes, no matter what kind of chemistry is floating around. There is no replacement for time and living real life together. Tragedies, little league, confrontations, potlucks, victories and late night S.O.S. texts are the things that build tribe and those things only happen over time. If you want to be tribe, don’t settle for any quick, artificial, skin-deep kind of connection. Walk it out every day. Be patient and be a builder.

3)  ASK GOD                                                                                                                                                                               Since He designed us to live a) not alone b) bearing one another’s burdens and c) rejoicing with those who rejoice, don’t you think He would love to give us just that? Here’s the catch: we can make ourselves tribebable, we can want it so bad and we can even be patient but we simply can’t arrange a gang like that for ourselves. Remember, it is a gift from God, and we dare not take any credit for it. It is heaven coming to earth. It is God’s design in a fallen world, giving us the kind of life He meant for us to have. Not only is it hard work, it’s also a miracle. Last I checked, the miraculous is His department, so it’s Him we have to ask. If you struggle to know even how to ask Him for something like that, try saying this: “God, I am lonely. Would you please show me how to be there for somebody and give me someone to be there for?” I promise you, He wants this for you.

Some of us may endure long seasons outside of a community and those seasons take a toll.  For those of you who have been praying for this to happen in your life but you still find yourself alone and profoundly lonely, I am thinking about you today. I pray courage and connection for you.

For those of you who have found the miracle of tribe in your own life, pass this post on to your tribe to honor them for doing the hard work and building with you. You are getting to live out your original design and you are so blessed.