If you’re starving and alone does it matter who gives you food?
Does it matter if the person is cruel or kind? Does ethnicity or nationality make a difference? The desire is for sustenance. The desire is to survive. It’s a primal longing. According to Abraham Maslow, its the foundation of the hierarchy of needs. The physiological necessities (i.e. food, air, water) overrule all else and we understand without them we would cease to exist.
Someone who provides such necessities in the time of greatest need can often be viewed as our savior, for they sustained our life.
But Saviors can be forgotten.
Hosea 13:5 – “I cared for you in the desert, in the land of burning heat. When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me.”
What’s interesting about God is that for most people He is an optional savior. In other words, we are able by the work of our own hands to meet our physiological needs. God’s salvation, while the possibility exists to meet our physiological needs, rather falls within Maslow’s “Self-Actualization” area of hierarchal needs. This is the least needed of necessities according to Maslow.
Maslow forgot about one thing. It is God who created the concept of ‘need’. God is not optional, He is foundational. If we were to re-create Maslow’s infamous pyramid we would place god below the physiological needs. God is the foundational, not optional. Without Him, needs would not exist. It’s only logical that all needs come second to God’s salvation, for God’s salvation encompasses all humanity could ever desire and He provides for all humanity could ever lack.
When we misplace the authority of God we find we become proud. Proud that we worked and cooked our meals. Proud we got the raise we wanted. Proud we bought the car we always desired. Proud we own the large home. Proud we met our needs. And when we become proud, God becomes optional.
God does not like being optional. He desires to be everything to us. How grateful we should be and how proud we should not.
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