We don’t like to need things. There is always the possibility that a particular need may not be met. That is one reason we find trials so uncomfortable. Every trial makes us feel our dependency upon someone or something outside of ourselves. Every trial could be expressed in terms of a need. I need healing. I need reconciliation. I need to be heard. I need to be protected. I need money/food/shelter. I need peace, rest, time, vindication, acquittal, comfort… Therefore, we want to be self-sufficient.
Self-sufficiency is the absence of need, and in some measure, the absence of discomfort. So, we give ourselves to attaining it. Acquiring money. Proactively pursuing health. Distancing ourselves from people to avoid relational trouble. Dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s to stay out of difficulties. Doing whatever is necessary to avoid needing.
But human self-sufficiency is a myth. Theologians would say man is a contingent being. That is, he can’t exist without someone else existing first and causing him to exist. I needed to be created (Gen 1:1). I need the cells of my body to do a trillion different things every moment of my life—not only so that I can function, but so that I can be (Psa 139:13-16). My continued existence is not a foregone conclusion—it must be actively maintained by someone outside of me (Heb 1:3). I need oxygen I can’t produce, food I can’t create, gravity I can’t explain, magnetic fields I can’t see, forgiveness I can’t earn, and a million other things I can’t imagine. I am need incarnate. To the extent I believe myself to be self-sufficient, I am self-deceived. Self-sufficiency isn’t possible.
However, the truth is that self-sufficiency isn’t good or truly desirable. Just the opposite—our need is a great blessing. We’ve already established that we are utterly dependent. Upon whom? The God of the Bible. This is wonderful for at least four reasons.
First, God is all-sufficient. Whereas we are contingent beings, He is a necessary, self-existent being. For anything else to exist, He must exist; and, it is part of His nature to exist—He depends upon nothing (Gen 1:1; Exo 3:14). Therefore, He is perfectly capable of caring for us. He does so even now. We know this because we are. In him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind (Job 12:10). He is even sufficient to cover the great offense of our sin by the infinitely holy blood of Christ (Rom 5:20). There is need be no fear that our needs cannot be met.
Second, God loves us. The key proof of this is that He sent His own Son to save us from sin and death (John 3:16). His love is necessarily unconditional (Deut 7:7-8), and it means He is disposed to care for us:
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:7-11)
Third, God is all-wise. God not only wants to care for our needs and do us good, but He knows better than we do what that good is—that we would be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom 8:28-29). He will use the best means possible to bring about that end.
Fourth, our dependence upon God is a grace to us. It is the means for our fulfillment as humans, for our enjoyment of life, for our relationship with Him (John 15:1-5). Our greatest trouble comes when we try to live as if we don't need Him. We were created to need Him so that we would enjoy experiencing His all-sufficiency. I think of how Paul grew to embrace his great need: But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:9-10).
If these things are true—and they are—our need is not something to be merely tolerated, but to be embraced and enjoyed. Each acute feeling of need is an opportunity to find Him sufficient, loving, wise, and gracious.
I am need incarnate, comprehensively and utterly dependent upon an all-sufficient God and Savior…who loves me. Praise the Lord.
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