What Do I Need?

“What do I need?”

I invite you to meditate on that question. Press yourself – what do you really need?

On Sunday I preached from Exodus 15 and 16. In those chapters we see the people of Israel grumbling about needs they seemed to imagine would go unmet. They say, “We need water, we need food.” The absence of those things in the immediate leads them to grumble and doubt the LORD.

There's no denying our creaturely nature. God created us to be the sorts of beings that require food and water for our sustenance. But our dependence on these things really act as signposts pointing us towards our utter dependency upon God.

You see, we could really press the Israelites and ask them, “Would water and food be enough?” They might get a jar of water, but there would always need another (and another). They might get a loaf to feed them that day, but they would always need more. From whom do these things come from? As much as such goods might sustain our life from one day to another, can mere bread and water give us eternity?

Both the supply of these things that we rely upon for living from one day to the next, and the weakness of those very things to overcome death, point us to our central need, in the end our singular need – we need the Lord. The One who supplies our daily bread, the One who gives us the water that wells up toeverlasting life (John 4:14). Only Christ offers us this drink, this bread of life. He is the one that we need.

I did not mention these verses on Sunday, but it comes to mind now. Before every request that we might ask of the Lord, among all those things that we may want or seem to need, our prayer should be that of David in Psalm 42 and 27,

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? [Psalm 42:1b-2]

One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. [Psalm 27:4]

Read the signs all around you. Our frailty, the broken promises of this world, all the weakness that surrounds us directs us to the LORD, the only one in whom life can be found. The only one in whom we can find lasting beauty and goodness, which we might gaze upon and indeed know for all eternity. Seek him.

Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV®
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Used with permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Rev. Tom Loghry

Tom Loghry is the senior pastor of Rockland Community Church in North, Scituate, RI. He is a graduate of the Berkshire Institute for Christian Studies, Toccoa Falls College (B.S. Pastoral Ministry), and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.A. Theology; M.A. Ethics & Society).