Why do you need?

“May he give to you your heart’s desire,

and your every plan may he fulfill.”  Psalm 20

Yesterday’s post may seem to say that God does not care about our physical needs, or perhaps a better term would be our temporal needs: emotional, physical, familial, financial needs which we accrue every day regardless of yesterday’s credits or debits but are completely cancelled out upon the day we lay our ledgers down and don’t get back up again.  Someone might level the accusation at me that, at least in my writing, i can be so spiritually minded as to be no earthly good.  How does knowing i need a savior help me with my anxiety?  What good is it to know God if i am locked in a struggle with management at work?  Where is the use in believing in my full pardon and peace with God if my home life is a warzone?  i am full of fightings within and without, where is my God?  Why has He forsaken me?  If God loves me so much, why am i going to bed hungry?  Why is cancer chewing up my child’s insides?  Why can’t i find work?  Why does nothing seem to ever work out for me?

Psalm 88, Job, Lamentations—our Scriptures, our Word of God, our Word from God to us about Him—are full of, filled on purpose with, heavy hitters of pain and woe and sorrow and shame and guilt and questions about why.  Why.  Why?  Why does God, who is so filled with compassion for us that He would become us and die our death for us to cancel all our debts to Him, then turn around and orchestrate, ordain and order our lives with so much misery, confusion and chaos?  So much empty space, silent dark halls connecting the all-too-few bright chambers of worship, celebration and joy?  For that matter, why is life purposely set up to be one long need?  We must breathe every minute, drink every few hours, eat every day, without shelter the earth itself will kill us, we must have human contact or we go mad, we must have work and not just any work but meaningful work or we lose all sense of worth and purpose, without trying or decision or ability to counteract we know all sorts of lack, holes form in our hearts when we do not have true friends, a family, hope for the future.  If our only true need is God, why would he create us as such obsessive bundles of need?

i don’t know.

But i think i can think of two reasons.  One, as inveterate, unaware and often incorrigible rebels to our Father in Heaven who loves us so well, we truly need a truly obvious and truly painful reminder of, well, our need.

Pride, pride is the foremost sin.  It is the sin under all sin.  Not God’s will, but mine.  Did God really say…?  Do I really need to listen to him?  Why must I listen to him?  What does he know?  Does he even exist?  Why shouldn’t I do as I please?  Our wills are indomitable.  You can cut it down and it grows right back.  Our hearts are idol factories, destroy one and we’ll quickly make another if we didn’t already have a back up on the shelf.  We are the eternal toddlers shaking our meaty little fists at our Father and yelling will all our primal fury, “NO!”  It is only pride that makes us think we do not need a guardian over our pride.  That unless God didn’t create in us built-in needs, failsafes, circuit-breakers, we would all be out there building the Tower of Babel, empires and temples to our own greatness and warring with each other's dominions when they encroached on ours.  Pride either says I have no need or everything, including God, should exist to serve MY needs!  But try as I might, build all the walls I can, as high and as deep and as strong as I will, I will never escape my needs.  I cannot be God.  Need is the sledgehammer at the base of my tower.

But if that’s the negative aspect, i also see a positive side to this cycle of perpetual human desire we have been created with: love.  

God loves.  God is love.  And God has loved us so much, He has created a world in which, if we humble ourselves to His plan (oh what a need!), we can learn to love as He does—and in the process, learn so much about how He loves us!—by loving others enough to meet.  Their.  Needs.  Need provides us with opportunity!  God needs nothing from us, how could He?  But He delights in us when we use the gifts He gives to love each other!  To meet the endless needs around us!  To help each other along the way, to encourage each other through the dark halls to the chambers and sanctuaries of celebration, to walk with each other as He walks with us!  God can act on His own behalf without any help from us whatsoever but His perfect and glorious will has always been to share His perfect glory with us!  To act through us!  For us to be his sons and daughters with Him!

For in reality, in the final analysis, if God seem silent and distant, it is most likely because we are.

What do you need?

“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?,’ for the pagans seek after all these things. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matt 6

“And my God will fulfill your every need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Phil 4

Psalm 91, yeah, the whole thing.

i feel i need to talk a bit about need.  It has become very vogue to quote Second Opinions, “God may not always give you what you want, but he always gives you what you need.”  (A paraphrase of the psalms of Jagger.) and standing alone like this, the quote is just fine and can stand tall and proud and while it may not be Scripture, Scriptures certainly supports it.  

IF you know what God means by ‘need.’  

Maybe take a minute to write down a list of all of your needs.  Go.  

No, seriously, do it.

Okay, all done?  Let’s take a look.  Depending on how pedantic you are, i’m guessing the big three are on there: Air, Water, Food, after that Maslow would add, Shelter, Community, then we get into First World concerns like Education, Fulfilling Work, Purpose, Happiness, Successful Children, a Boat, a She-shed, a Beach House, a Republican controlled congress or a serious Democratic contender for 2020, a Pony, more Money in the retirement account.  Nice list.  Maybe you're sick and need healing?  Or your wife to love you?  Or your child to come home?  Who would not call these 'needs'?  Were there any theology students out there?  Did anyone write down, “Forgiveness of Sins”?  “Peace with God”?  “A Savior”?

Jesus did, “And Jesus answered and said to them, “Those who are healthy do not have need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”  Luke 5

“And behold, they brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher, and when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Have courage, child, your sins are forgiven.”  Matt 9

“Jesus replied to him, “Unless I wash you, you do not have a share with me.”” John 13

“I have said these things to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have affliction, but have courage! I have conquered the world.”  John 16

Everyone who has ever died, even Christians, has needed life.  Everyone who was ever starving, even Christians, needed food.  Everyone who was ever dehydrated, even Christians, needed water.  Everyone who was ever drowning, yep, even Christians, needed air.  The paralytic needed healing and yes, Jesus healed many people.  And yes, Jesus fed many people.  And yes, Jesus, as the rock in the desert, gave water to many people.  And yes, Jesus even raised people from the dead.  But every one of those people died.  They were thirsty again.  They were hungry again.  They got sick again.  It’s not that Jesus couldn’t fix these things permanently, he is God, of course he can.  He chose not to.  That was not the point of the miracles.  Jesus didn’t come to meet or abolish all physical “needs,” he came to deal with our real need.  The same need we’ve had since the Garden.  Adam and Eve weren’t going to live forever because their bodies were perfect, they needed to eat to live just the same as you or i.  

“And Yahweh God said, “Look—the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil. What if he stretches out his hand and takes also from the tree of life and eats, and lives forever?”  Gen 3

Adam and Eve would live forever because the Tree of Life was there!  The Tree which does what all miracles do, point to Jesus, the true Tree of Life!  It is only connected to Jesus that we can live!  It is only through him that we can know what life is!  It is only in him that we can be right with God!  The only thing we really need, the only need we have, is God!  A right relationship with the Father and the only way to have that is through the Son!  If you have the Son, you have the Father and you literally, have no other true Needs!  You can have lots of desires and that’s fine, bring them to the Father, he loves you but bring them with a grateful heart!  Rejoice!  Give thanks!  Your God has supplied all your needs!