Here is a sneak peek of my upcoming book “A Return To God” which will be Part 24 of The Book Of Benjamin Kareth:

A Return To God – Chapter Five – Our Greatest Need

The word “need” as far as words go is a small word, only 4 letters, and yet it is the word that motivates and drives most of our thoughts and actions throughout our lives on this earth.

Do you want to know the difference between the righteous and the wicked? The dividing line that separates the righteous from the wicked is this:

The wicked refuse to acknowledge God as God and so they become slaves to their needs. Every single moment for them is trying to fulfill needs that they can never fulfill or satisfy… ever. They become animals driven by their physical nature alone. If the wicked have an itch … they scratch it, and that itch spreads and deepens into a sore, eventually those sores lead to death on every single level of their lives.

The righteous are those who acknowledge God as God. They run to Him when they have needs. He is their first thought when they wake and their last thought when they fall asleep. He is their strength and their help and their very life. He is the air that they breathe. His Word is Law to them, and they are governed by the Holy Spirit by humbling themselves before God, asking for His strength in every circumstance. When they fall, they run to God for forgiveness, seventy-times seven… and God forgives them and pours more grace out. When tempted to meet a need by what is not God’s design, the righteous turn to God and look to Him to help them understand how to meet that need in a right way if possible or for the strength to say no to what is not of God. When the righteous have an itch, they are self-controlled, not in their own strength, but in the glorious power of the risen Christ. They take that itch to God and present it at His feet. And they find the strength to know what to do.

Needs.

We have them, possess them, bow to them, seek to meet them, and fill them. These needs of ours can become overwhelmingly and incredibly all-consuming. God gave them to us as part of His original design for us, so that He could meet them and take care of us as our Father.
We need. Oh, how we need!

When I wake in the morning, I am faced with numerous pressing needs…. Usually, I need to relieve myself and then begin my morning routine. And in the back of my mind my day begins to unfold before me and I see all the needs I’ll have throughout the coming hours… and somehow, I know I must manage them, meet them, or deny them as I travel through my day until I lay down again to sleep. Sleep is my rest from meeting my needs of the day… but I know that when I wake tomorrow, I will begin again in the seemingly endless cycle of meeting my needs.

I am currently 40 years old. My needs today are not my needs from a year ago, just as my needs as a child were different than they are now. The ways that I choose to meet them has changed over the years as I have grown older.

These are some of our basic needs: food, water, grooming, work, shelter, safety, and social interactions. But our needs don’t stop there… We have many more complicated ones like acceptance, purpose, being seen and heard and touched, and the many, many other emotional, mental, and physical needs. So many needs to meet.

So how does “need” relate to a Return to God?

He created us first and foremost to need Him. Yes, above all our other needs, we need Him. He is life and His love is life to us. And doing His will is the bread of life for us, it sustains us.

He created us to be unable to function rightly apart from Him. Without Him we can know no lasting peace, but with Him we have endless peace.
Think about all your needs. Think about those things that drive you through your days? What motivates you? What would you do anything for? Our needs say a lot about who we are.

As a simple step you could begin to recognize your daily needs and start placing each one before the throne of God. See if they are a need that you are meeting in a wicked way or a righteous way. Does how you meet your daily needs lead to life? Or to death? Is the way you are meeting your temporal needs hindering your eternal life with God? Are you meeting them your way or God’s way?