Do you know what would your life would look like if you didn’t have any needs?  I doubt it. It’s hard to picture not having needs.  From the first day of life, we are needy. We forget, but in those early days, we needed warmth.  As babies we needed food and water.  We needed to be changed.  We needed someone to hold us when we cried, to play with us when we were bored, to teach us to talk.

As time goes on and we grow in years, we learn to take care of some of our needs for ourselves. And find that others take care of some of the needs.  Yet, on some level, we always remain needy.  Somehow, despite our best efforts to fortify ourselves against those cruel “needs” by padding: our bank accounts, our social calendars, our schedules.  We – if we are honest – think that utopia would be life without those irritating ‘needs’.

Needs is such a broad term. While unfulfilled desires, problems, and challenging situations might be an accurate picture of your needs, others need basics: food, clean water, clothing, shelter, and money.  Maybe your most pressing need at the moment is a cell phone battery that needs to be charged.  But there are others who don’t have cell phones.  (obviously all needs are not created equal.)

Regardless of what your need is, right now I’m sure there is some need in your life.  Great or small, basic or trivial, there is that irritation that you need to reach out for something to make your world right. Some need is sticking you like a burr and it won’t let you rest until you eradicate it.

In America, and perhaps all over the world, having needs are construed in a negative manner.  They are irritating, they are interrupting, they cause pain.  We spend a lot of time and money thinking of ways to eliminate or minimize our needs, and we dream of a world without them.

There is, however, the flip side of need.  And that side involves God.  If – as we like to envision – we were able to manipulate the world so that it satisfied our every want and left us without need – would we actually turn to God?

David, the psalmist, didn’t think so.  He writes, “before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.”  Psalm 119:67 ESV.

There was something about that painful affliction, or need that propelled David to obedience to God. Later on, he continues in the same psalm, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” Psalm 119:71 ESV

David’s need brought him to face God’s ways and submit to them.  And David goes as far as to say that affliction – or need – is a good thing.  It seems that this is the way he learned about God.

The way up is the way down…the way to God is a path of humility.  The ancients knew this.  Can we, in our modern era, see our need in this way? Can we view our unmet needs as more than a temporary inconvenience to be erased and actually see them as a means to lean harder on God – draw nearer to Him – learn of His ways?