Love and significance identify the two most basic needs God created us with. Although we may not be conscious of it, we will work very hard to have those needs met..... Relational and nurturing, women crave love that is warm and affectionate. Having a God-given ego that is often wrongly maligned, men push for leadership, impact, and a sense of importance. And yet, God knew that spouses would not love perfectly, teens would often reject parental guidance, promotions still leave us short of being on top, achievements can be quickly forgotten, if acknowledged at all, and “things” wear out, fade in their appeal, and leave us wanting more..... And God knew too the devastating impact emotional trauma, failure, rejection, abandonment, abuse, or loss, could also bring. Those are words I wrote many years ago, but they are still inescapably true.
Jesus met a woman in the heat of the day, a woman who had known trauma, failure, rejection, abandonment, abuse, and loss. Initially, they chat about being thirsty and about theological differences. Jesus then suggests for her husband to join them, but she attempts avoiding the suggestion by saying she doesn’t have a husband. Jesus agrees because the man she is living with is not legally her husband and the five husbands she had before her present relationship are no longer in the picture. Her avoidance hasn’t worked, so she backtracks, and dodges the moral issues she is confronted with by asking the “why” of another theological difference. What is happening? Why address sin when the woman standing before Jesus has had her inner person shredded and she is living with the consequences of that shredding???
GriefShare is a biblically based support group that meets weekly in thousands of locations across the country. Those who attend a full cycle of videos, discussion, and the embracing support of others, are given understanding and comfort, but they are also challenged with the concept that they have a problem bigger than their grief. The problem that is bigger than their grief is identified as sin. Again, I ask the question, why address sin when the individuals being asked have had their world shaken, their emotions ravaged, and the future seems very uncertain????
Returning to what I began with, nothing (including those we want to love deeply and we want their love in return), nothing God has created or that He has allowed us to create will ever totally meet our basic needs for love and significance. The intent of God’s creative wisdom was that these needs would draw us to Him who alone can meet both needs perfectly. There is a hindrance though in fully knowing God’s provision to meet our needs. Believers and non-believers alike can cry out to God for help, but the promise of provision is given to the believer, the one living in a relationship with God in which He is Father, and I am His child. And relationship with God is only found when sin and my responsibility for that sin is acknowledged, and I first accept the provision for sin that God is able to give because of what His Son has already done for me. Addressing sin, while at the same time compassionately recognizing other needs that are also there, opens the door for a relationship with God, the God who has promised to meet His children in whatever need the brokenness of living confronts us with.
(Related Bible reading: John 4:1-42)
