The Corruption Of "I Need"

There are things that I need. I need air. More than a few minutes without it I die. I need water. I can go a few days without it, but I'll die without it. I need food. I can go a month or more without it. But eventually I'll starve. I need shelter and clothing. I can live without it for a long time. But eventually exposure will do me in. I need Jesus. Without him I am doomed. Without his forgiveness and grace, I am a miserable sinner. I need my Bible, because without it I can be easily led astray. That's it. Everything else isn't a need. It's a want.

I want a car so I can drive myself to work. But I could ride a bike, take a job closer to home so I can walk, or at other times of my life, take a bus. (The town I live in now doesn't have a bus.) A car makes my life easier. Grocery shopping without one is a royal pain. But that doesn't make it a need.

I want sex. I love sex. Sex was created by God to bind a husband and wife together. He made it awesome on purpose. Pastor Mark Gungor accurately describes it as the Novocain that makes married life possible. And I really, really want it. But I don't need it. Never in the history of humanity has there been a toe-tag on a corpse listing the cause of death as lack of sex.

It is stunning to me how many people don't get this. There isn't even any improvement in understanding when we only look at Christians. The majority of people say "I need" when they really mean "I want". This isn't semantics. People act as if their wants are needs. If they perceive someone is threatening their ability to get what they want, they behave as if that person is trying to hold a pillow over their face to kill them. They justify any bad behavior, no matter how terrible, because they have labeled it as a need.

People who claim to be Christians will have sex outside of marriage, steal, defraud, and anything else that they want to do. And they feel totally justified because they "need" it. They say things like, "God understands" or "God wants to meet my needs." The most common one I hear is, "Doesn't God want me to be happy?" I wonder if these people have ever cracked a Bible open.

Acts 16 tells the story of when Paul cast out a spirit from a slave-girl. Because of the spirit in her she could act as a fortune-teller. Her owners charged people money for this. So it was natural that they were angry at having this income stream cut off. (The Bible doesn't tell if she was effective. Only that people were willing to pay to hear it.) So these jerks hauled Paul and Silas in front of the magistrates and made up some lies. Paul and Silas had their robes torn off, were beaten with rods, and given to the jailer who put them in the inner prison and locked them in stocks. These were brutal times. I'm sure they were badly injured. The prison was filthy and stank, and they were in the worst part of it. They were in stocks, so they couldn't even move about. That's painful when you're whole. Imagine it after getting beaten up. They even had to relieve themselves where they were secured. This was a very bad day. They did nothing to deserve it. All they did was cast out a demon. Do you think this made them happy?

If ever there were two men who had the right to feel sorry for themselves, it was these two. Yet they didn't give up. They didn't whine. They didn't ask God why He didn't stop it from happening. They didn't blame or question God. They didn't ask why God didn't try to make them happy. Instead, they reacted to their terrible circumstances with joy. They prayed and sang hymns of praise to God. The other prisoners heard them, and the jailer did too because of what he did later. I'm sure they were all wondering how someone could react this way after going through all that.

Then a miracle happened. An earthquake shook the jail, all the doors popped open and all the chains came undone. Everyone wants a miracle in their lives. The bad part is you have to need a miracle to get one. A miracle isn't enough in itself to win people over. Thousands of people saw Jesus perform miracles, but bailed as soon as the words Jesus spoke got hard. The jailer and his whole household were won over by the unshakable faith and joy of these two men in the face of unbelievable hardship. The Bible doesn't say, but I'd bet that a lot of the prisoners were saved as well. Who wouldn't want what these guys have?

While some Christians get this part of the story about joy in adversity and take it to heart, they may make the opposite mistake. If you keep reading you see that when everything had cooled off the magistrates realized they had overreacted. So they sent word to have Paul and Silas released. While the injustice done to Paul and Silas didn't affect their joy, they also didn't meekly accept what had happened and leave quietly. Paul told the officers no! They broke the law! They had us beaten and thrown into jail without a trial. We are Roman citizens. You tell them to come here and escort us out! (This is a paraphrase.) This was a big deal. The magistrates were in big trouble. While they could do this to others, you did not treat Roman citizens this way or the punishment would be severe, at least as bad as when they had done to Paul and Silas. These local officials were in hot water and they knew it. They came and begged Paul to leave the city. He left the prison and went back to the house he was staying at. And then he left. Paul could have made things very bad for these jerks if he'd wanted to. He asserted his rights. And in the end he did accept the apology and left, but on his own terms.

God met the needs of Paul and Silas. But I'm sure they didn't want to have the snot beat out of them and get locked in stocks in a stinky prison. God didn't give them what they wanted. And God used this injustice for the advancement of the faith. They didn't confuse I need with I want. They put their trust in God, and praised Him no matter the circumstance. But they weren't afraid to demand justice, or at least an apology from the earthly authorities that wronged them. And they forgave. We can do both. We can hold onto joy, yet not be a doormat for those who would wrong us. It's easy to feel sorry for ourselves, or go the other way and become consumed by anger. It's hard to do it right. But it can be done.