Pride: The Battle over “Needs” Between Man and God

In the ongoing battle between the Creator and His rebellious creatures, pride manifests itself over one of the most simplest and yet incredibly diverse dilemmas: what constitutes human “need.”
The pot always finds it appropriate to talk back at the Potter and say “You’re not giving me what I need. God, this is what I need.” Meanwhile, the all-wise Potter knows perfectly well what the pot “needs,” since He created all pots to begin with. He knows everything there is to know about pots. Contrary to the popular pot-culture, sometimes the pot needs a broken heart, even though the Potter knows the pot will get upset. Sometimes the pot needs a few months without a job, even though the pot just started it a week ago. Sometimes the pot needs marital conflict, even though the pot specifically asked the Potter for peace. Sometimes the pot needs a friend to fall back on. It needs time to heal. It needs instruction on how to live, love, or even survive. The Potter is aware of countless “needs” that the pot is usually completely unaware of. The pot is too busy to notice, since it is trying to satisfy its own self-generated, culture-generated, or family-generated and therefore artificial needs.

In short, the pot wants to define what its own needs are when the Maker is the only actual source for such meaningful definitions of “needs” (let alone solutions) in the first place. It’s as if two passengers are struggling over the same steering wheel, and God is sitting in the driver’s seat, driving a car that He designed, formed, and built from literally nothing at all. He knows everything there is to know about the vehicle He’s driving. And yet, the other passenger, a mere observer, claims to know the very nature and purpose for which every turn is executed and how it’s executed within the intricate mechanisms of the car. Absurd? Not nearly as absurd as how he ignores the Potter sitting next to Him while making these very claims!
This battle of wills and definitions exists regardless of whether the pot even worships the Potter or not. Indeed, Christians or atheists, countless of us think we really know what we need, spiritually, mentally, physically, sexually, but are, in reality, utterly clueless of the truth.

How radical, then, for feminists to say “women need not be focused on bearing children and supporting our husbands, they need empowerment aside from and despite men,” as if the womb and egg were accidents of nature and that the entire sex of man and gender of masculinity are obstacles for true femininity. How radical, for the newly raped girl of 17 to say “I don’t need help, I just need to be tough. I don’t need to talk to anyone, I just need someone who won’t ask questions – a new boyfriend who loves me like I need,” especially since it was her “needs” that got her into trouble in the first place. How radical, absurd in fact, for the suburbs Christian father of five to say about his kids “they need more activities” when they haven’t so much as spent thirty minutes with either of their parents all week. How patently insane for the teenage boy to say “I need a girlfriend” when a girlfriend is the last thing he “needs.” Bizarre, for the 60 year old war veteran to say “I need another drink” when another drink is the last thing he “needs.” Uncanny for the middle-aged American to say “I need another SUV” when another SUV is the last thing he “needs.”

Such “needs” would never have existed in the first place if the creature hadn’t rebelled from the Creator. Why, then, do we insist that we can not only define, but actually satisfy human needs entirely apart from God revealing to us what exactly it is that we need? Does it make sense for a pilot to tell the jet mechanic that the jet needs fuel when the engines are completely missing from the fuselage? Neither, then, does it make sense for any creature to even begin to define what a human “need” is without acknowledging and directly learning from the Creator of all things.
The Potter has spoken in His Word and through His prophets. We don’t need entertainment, we need revelation. We don’t need self-help programs, we need good theology. We don’t need to drown ourselves in good-works missions, we need to accept and dwell on God’s grace. In short, we need less of ourselves and more of Jesus Christ. Yes, this is precisely the most unnatural, submissive, and difficult thing a human being can do. But it’s also the most satisfying cure to whatever needs do exist in our lives.
The very fact that we see Christ as more of an irrelevant dead Jewish carpenter than the solution to world’s problems for all time only shows us how much we do need good theology. The very fact that we choose our church according to the quality of the music only shows us how much we do need God’s truth in His revelation. And the very fact that our idea of Christianity is all about how much we can do for others instead of how much God has done for us, only shows us how much we do need, really need, to dwell on God’s grace.
Try walking on water. Try dying the death of Jesus. Try writing a 66-book collection of every type of genre imaginable over the course of 4,000 years. Then don’t tell me we don’t need Jesus, that we don’t need to know about Him, and we don’t need the book that talks the most about Him and about why He did what He did.

Needs, clearly, are structured according to the Maker’s purpose of the one who is in need. You “need to stretch your legs” because the body wasn’t made to sit around and do nothing. You “need to get some fresh air” because you were made for the outdoors. You “need to talk to my wife” because marriage wasn’t meant to exist apart from communication. These things aren’t subjective.
Some human needs are not subjective. God calls the shots when it comes to what human beings need, whether we like admitting or doing it or not.
Your body needs water no less than your marriage needs communication. Your muscles need oxygen no less than your love for God needs daily prayer and self-denial. Your eyes need moisture no less than a man needs a faithful female helper to find rest from loneliness and God-given and God-designed satisfaction in his work.

Or maybe God had no idea what He was doing. Maybe we can define our needs on a whim entirely apart from creational design. Maybe we can define our needs autonomously and change them whenever we feel like it.

Pride. Sin. The ultimate source of evil.

Then let us march forward against it. It is patently absurd to try and define masculinity and femininity apart from the Creator of male and female; for if such roles are purely socially constructed and therefore relative to begin with, how much more subjective, changeable, and arbitrary are our contextual solutions, definitions, and categories through which we supposedly “empower” the world of men and women since these solutions, definitions, and categories are no less socially constructed then the very roles we are trying to define. That is to say, to neutralize and blur one aspect of humanity through attempts of empowerment on the basis of cultural contextualization is to neutralize those very same attempts of empowerment; arguments for socially constructed truths are arguments against socially constructed truths. One truth is just as good, preferential, and subjective as another. Equally defective are attempts to define true spirituality, emotional peace, or sexual needs.

Human beings more than anything need to stop trying to re-define what God has originally defined in nature as genuine needs. We need to look to the Need-Provider to see what our true needs are. Let us be reminded, of course, that if our needs are in fact baseless and mistakenly defined, how much more sinful (“off the mark”) will our solutions be?

Obviously, you’ll be found filling up an engine-less air plane with fuel. No, you’re not enlightening me, and you sure is heck aren’t helping society.
Choose wisdom and submission, not foolishness and pride.