needs on Deprivation

There is an invisible pattern in the design of deprivation: deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens it. And the more heightened the desire, the greater our satisfaction will ultimately be. It ...

So we learn early on that lack is embarrassing. Our pain is uncomfortable not just for ourselves but for those around us. Our need is obscene and offensive to a world that prides itself on its self-re...

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.” Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us...

The world says: "You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This ...

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have all one needs.

Survival requires more than the basic biological necessities we readily acknowledge—oxygen, food, and water. It also demands something less tangible but equally vital: hope. When hope vanishes, the hu...

Naked need is the occasion for God's giving, not a need adorned with the clean, elegant robes of respectability and good works.

You aren't alive if you aren't in need.

A true prayer is an inventory of needs, a catalog of necessities, an exposure of secret wounds, a revelation of hidden poverty.

This world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.

If He who in Himself can lack nothing chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed.

Desire is something no child has to be taught. Early in the developmental process, most of a child’s desires center around physical needs being met or objects that attract interest. If a child is secu...

Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and...

Although I witnessed the faithfulness of God to meet my basic needs, I used coping mechanisms to meet my immediate, personal needs.

“For need can blossom into all the compensation it requires. To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to tas...

Desire is part of what it means to be a child, as implied in Jesus’ words to his disciples when he tells them, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never ente...

Great needs grow from great possessions.

There are two ways each of us can approach life: spending our days meeting our needs or looking for ways to meet others' needs. The mystery is that when we spend our life focused on our own needs,...

The Greeks used to say that people in need are ambassadors of the gods.

God gives where he finds empty hands.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

God of mercy, we ignore the needs of people around us all too often. We get caught up in our own issues and forget that there are millions of people who struggle for basic necessities on a daily basis...

When human reason has exhausted every possibility, the children can go to their Father and receive all they need. ... For only when you have become utterly dependent upon prayer and faith, only when a...

Gracious God, you call us to a life of intimate relationship with you and with one another. You call us to a life of community, where we actively seek the needs of others before our own. We acknowledg...

We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture…. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality. Man’s de...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we too often center our lives around ourselves and our immediate needs, and that this blinds us from being aware of the needs of our neighbors. Help us to know our tru...

One of the oldest human needs is to have someone to wonder where you are if you don’t come home at night.

What is it that you need most? No, it’s not that girl or that new car that you’ve had your eyes on. It’s not that promotion you’ve worked so hard for or that vacation you’ve dreamed of. No, it’s not t...

Holy Lord, High Priest over all people, You have given us everything we need to live a life of flourishing. You have met our needs and provided a model for what a life-with-God looks like. But we oft...

The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time.