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Do you hold to the idea that God is completely self sufficient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and doesn’t “need” us at all? I have or I still do to some degree, but my beliefs have expanded and evolved, which is a good thing. This sweet pastor used to say, “if your views are not growing you become like stagnant pond water and there is just nothing worse than a stinky Christian.” He said we all need to be wrung out sometimes, like an old stinky kitchen sponge that is trying to go sour.

I am laughing, that analogy really got my attention and was very convicting. Lord, don’t ever let me become like an old stinky kitchen sponge, so set in my ways the water of your spirit no longer flows through me.

First let me say, this is the language of relationships, not theology so much. Human people often struggle to communicate with one another when we are face to face. Men and women are notorious for arguing over “wants, needs, and desires”, and trying to discern the difference. To complicate matters, we often lack self awareness and have all these fleshly desires pulling at us. So to be “needy” is often seen as a bad thing, a sign of weakness or dependency. A sign of selfishness. A sign of being lower on the totem pole.

We human people tend to assign a hierarchy of worth and power and proceed to conclude that the one with the needs is weaker. We pride ourselves on our own self sufficiency and our rugged individualism. Therefore God who is Holy and all powerful cannot possibly have any “needs.” We falsely conclude if He were vulnerable in any way He would not be all powerful.

I happen to believe this perception is not really Biblical, it’s a man made misconception. I think the Bible is really good at turning our imaginary hierarchies on their head. I mean, “the first shall go last.” Or, “my strength is made perfect in weakness.” Or, “Blessed are the meek.”

One reason I started studying this issue more deeply is because things got a bit tedious for me in the evangelical world. There is an excessive amount of prosperity gospel and earned salvation going on, ironically neither of which seem to produce good results. I mean, we believe God has no needs, I’m the only needy one in the relationship, so paradoxically, now God seems to exist exclusively to serve me. We pray for His blessing upon our own plans we never even consulted with Him about, and we engage in an almost transactional exchange, pretending as if we can earn more of His favor through our own good works. Our prayers are often desperate and pleading and childlike, as if God were a miserly Father who must be coaxed into doling out tiny rations of goodness.

In contrast when you perceive God as having a need, it changes the whole script and now suddenly you exist to serve Him. In the beginning God created the world and us, so He had a need, perhaps a need for companionship, a family, a relationship, but regardless none of us created ourselves. He wanted, needed, or desired us. We exist to fulfill His needs, not our own. Ironically this attitude also tends to make us much happier, more joyful, almost as if we were deliberately designed for it. Designed for what? Fulfilling His needs! Why have we been created? For the glory of God, right?

We were not made exclusively for our own glory.

We know that God has needs because we can actually grieve the Holy Spirit. Our behavior impacts Him. Jesus wept! Being vulnerable is not the same as being powerless or weak, although on the human end of things it sometimes feels that way to us. Feelings however are not always “truth,” right? Jesus came and certainly made Himself vulnerable, not in an act of weakness, but in an act of power like the world has never seen.

I think this is what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

Notice how Paul starts right off by pointing out, “I am not saying this because I am in need“

I also think this is what the Bible means when it says,” Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

The more I’ve turned to God and let Him heal me, let Him fix my heart, let Him fulfill my needs, the more I’ve come to realize, I actually don’t have any needs of my own. The desperation is gone, the fear is gone, the hunger is no longer there. I don’t have to try to earn His favor, it’s a given, a done deal. I no longer have to try to pour things into my soul to try to satisfy all my own needs, wants, and desires. The Bible says, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” That happened a few thousand years before I was even born, so I clearly had no hand in it, nor can I earn it after the fact. God has a desire, a need for me to be born, a need for me to be saved, and a need for me to try to reflect some of His goodness out in the world.

All in good humor here, but I also know this is true because in spite of my best efforts to thwart God at every turn, here we are today doing just that. His will is always going to prevail, not my own. The fact that God might have needs does not make Him weak or more vulnerable at all, in fact, it makes Him stronger and more powerful. Also, more logical, more consistent, and more ordered. That’s hard to explain and of course I am just a human, so this stuff is much like trying to download watermelon ideas into a pea brain. All I know for sure is that God needs me here for a reason, God needs me to serve Him in a million little ways, and my own needs are so well sustained by Him, that I needn’t worry about having them at all.