“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
As this small birds finds its needed water for drink and bath, so shall you have your needs filled–
Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or
“What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and
indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
(Matthew 6:31-31 NRSV Anglican)
The key, throughout life, is being able to understand the difference between a need and a want.
My grandmother had a little expression that, as a young kid growing up, frustrated my own battle between wrestling with needs and wants…”your wants will never hurt you”—meaning, I could want and want all day long and at the end of the day, I’d still be perfectly fine. In my thought process however, I always told myself “well yes, that may be so, but I still want __________ –you may fill in the blank.
Our Western Culture constantly works to undermine the concept of need as it feeds the endless well of want. It caters, in all of it’s sleek and glamours advertising, to convince us that we “need” the new clothes, the new purse, the new house, the new car, the new body or we won’t be complete— we will be less than, we will be unhappy, we will be unfulfilled….the list goes on and on.
As we prepare to celebrate another Thanksgiving, offering our gratitude for so much more than the mere founding of a colony which grew to be this powerful Nation we call home, may we take pause, being mindful that there is indeed a great God, who claims us as His own. . . may we rest in the knowledge of knowing that not one single thing about us passes His attention–ever. That we truly have all we ever need—that is if we are fed, clothed, sheltered and loved—everything else is just gravy.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
(Matthew 6: 25-27 ESVA)
The need: knowing that you are loved by a great God. That being truly the only “need” any of us “needs”
The want: the empty attempts of filling ones life with the stuff of moth and wormwood.
Rest beloved in the knowledge of knowing that your God will fill your needs. . . will you trust Him?
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