Articles
Our Core Needs
There may be more, but at least, there are five core needs all people need. Consider the need of security. Who can I trust? Who will keep me safe? There is the need of identity. Who am I? Also, there is the need of belonging. Who wants me? Again, there is the need of purpose. Why am I alive? Finally, there is the need of competence. What do I do well? Every one of those needs can be and is met by God.
God provides the ultimate security. No matter how secure we try to make our homes, our cars, and our everyday lives, there is always the opportunity for danger to prey upon us. It is when we put our trust in people who are not trustworthy and who influence us to love the world instead of the Father that we become insecure. God offers security that no man can take away. We may be impacted by events that affect the outward man, but nothing can remove us from His love. Our inward can find security in Him. We are the most secure when we look to God and rely on Him.
God also provides identity. When we have a negative identity, it is hard to have a change of behavior. Interestingly, what Satan offered Adam and Eve, they already had. Satan said, “You will be like God.” They were already like God! God said, “Let us make man in our image.” Eating what was forbidden was not going to make them anymore like God than God had already made them. Our identity is found in who He made us to be. He made us to be like Him. He gives us our identity.
Further, we can be rejected by friends, peers, and even my brethren, but a child of God belongs to God. If our need to belong is filled through pleasing others and their approval, then we will do what is necessary to fit in. We will live like the world because that is our god. Our morals and convictions will be changed to suit that desire to belong. Conversely, when we have that close, growing relationship with God, our morals, our will, and our convictions will be changed to please Him. In Him we find our true place of belonging. No matter who may hurt us or cut us off, our sense of belonging if fulfilled when we are filled with the fulness of God.
Consider, we also find our purpose when we give ourselves and our passion to Him. We must face it. We are not in control. Our purpose is to grow to be like Him. That is what we were created to be in the beginning. God did not spare His son to forgive us, so we could grow to be like Him.
Finally, our greatest competence is when we use our God given abilities and heart to serve Him and others. The one thing we can do well is strive to please Him always in all things. Our greatest competence is found when we deny ourselves.
Through our relationship with God, all our core needs are met. No one stands alone. No one needs to feel insecure, lost in who we are, wondering, without a sense of belonging, wandering aimlessly without purpose and be incompetent. God provides all we need.
Rickie Jenkin
