Back in 2018, we purchased a car for the first time as European residents. As in many countries around the world, most cars where we live have manual transmissions. Automatic cars exist but fell outside of our budget, so consequently we found ourselves the proud owners of a manual Toyota. This purchase posed no problems for my husband as he had learned to drive on a manual car, but I learned on an automatic car and had never acquired the skill of driving a manual one. I was therefore faced with the task of learning to drive a stick shift in my mid-thirties in a busy European capital city.  

My husband serving as my ever-patient teacher, we set out to find a place we could go for my first few lessons that we knew would be…how to put it…rough. In the city, wide-open spaces aren’t exactly easy to come by, but we knew IKEA was closed on Sundays, so we arrived one Sunday afternoon ready to begin in the parking lot. To our amusement, we were not alone: several other cars with teachers and pupils jerkily drove up and down the asphalt aisles. I felt a strange companionship and empathy with my fellow learners as our cars lurched around the parking lot; we never got out of our cars and spoke with each other, but I felt safe in this group. Like I belonged there.  

Driving practice at IKEA seems like an odd place from which to make spiritual parallels, but the Lord often gives us gracious reminders from unexpected sources. As Christians, because we have union with Christ, we belong to the people of God globally, meaning that we share a familial connection with Christians around the world. We are also called specifically to belong to the people of God as expressed in the local church–a body of believers with whom we worship corporately, share fellowship, and grow in our love for Jesus. Belonging in a local church may not come easily or naturally, but abundant blessings come from the gathering and the sharing that takes place when God’s people meet together. Jesus loves His bride, the Church, and by the transforming power of the gospel, the local church can become a community we love and in which we can truly belong – much more deeply than the IKEA parking lot!