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Grace Lesson 1

The Three Spiritual Needs
Be Loved, Love, Do Something To Feel Worthwhile

The dozens of sparrows that live near my (Susan) apartment sometimes relieve themselves on my balcony.  Not praiseworthy behavior in any sense, nevertheless, I recently began to feed them.  Sometimes, I’ll even make a special trip to the store or go without something I want so I can get seed for them; I don’t want them to go hungry.  Feeding the sparrows has become one of the simple joys of my life.  I couldn’t bear to stop.  The birds do absolutely nothing to earn my devotion.  Manipulative tactics play no part in their securing the delicious meals I provide each day.  So, then, why do I continue this passionate obligation?  Why is this somewhat lopsided relationship so satisfying?  The answer is simple:  I am compelled to give, and the birds know how to receive.  That is how grace works.

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap, or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Matthew 6:26

 Unfortunately, many of us have not learned the lesson the birds of the air already know.

Mary was a thirty-five-year-old professional. She was married with two children, and to the world, she was a success. When she came to me for counseling, I asked her what she wanted.

“I want contentment,” she said.

“Oh that’s easy,” I (Terry) said, with a laugh. “I thought you just wanted lots of stuff and everything in the world to be the way you want it to be.”  

“Well, that’s what I mean. I want people to give me what I deserve. After all, I earned it. I did things the way they said I should, so they owe me.”

I looked Mary straight in the eye, and I said, “Well Mary, I can’t help you there, but come back and see me when you want contentment.”

The Dilemma

Was I being unreasonable? I don’t think so. Though she may not have realized it, Mary was expressing her frustration about her desires:

Our discovery of the spiritual needs and our odyssey to meet those needs intertwine to explain human behavior. Every human being shares the same three spiritual needs. In a sense, Mary was right: the fulfillment of her needs is the key to contentment in life. Unfortunately, she thought that the key to having them met was having the world cater to her wishes and giving her what she thought she had earned by good behavior, hard work or other sacrifices.

The reality is that the world cannot consistently deliver contentment to any of us, no matter how much we think we deserve it or how hard we work to earn it. Unaware of this fact, we try—but never fully succeed—to meet our needs. We tend to carry an underlying false belief system that I call the “If … Then,” or “I.T. Syndrome.” This syndrome results in our believing lies instead of the truth about our contentment in life, as the following box illustrates.

The Earning Pattern

We accept a multitude of erroneous “I.T.” statements, but may be unaware that they are even a part of our belief system. Nevertheless, they open the door to our employment of the Earning Pattern, which begins a vicious cycle that guarantees unmet spiritual needs and our ultimate discontentment with life.   

What is this Earning Pattern and how does it affect our lives?  Every negative character trait/behavior human beings exhibit has unmet spiritual needs at its root. These traits/behaviors include things such as: manipulation, sexual perversion, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, envy, drunkenness, a lust for power, sex, or money. These negative character traits—and others like them—are nothing but the methods we use to meet our spiritual needs through some person, place, or thing. That defines the Earning Pattern.

Using the Earning Pattern to meet your unmet spiritual needs is like drinking seawater to quench your thirst. As you fill your belly with water, the salt only increases your desire for more water! And so, despite the inadequacies of the Earning Pattern, we continue using it to meet our needs because we think there is simply no other way. That is Mary’s problem—and ours.

Who Are You?

Who are you in your heart? Take a few minutes and think about the way you would describe yourself to someone you really trust. Do you in any way identify yourself by your negative traits? I know I have at times. For years, I accepted the lie that I was an angry, negative, or unforgiving person. I did exhibit all those traits/behaviors, but none of them fully defined me as a person. They were merely symptoms of my unmet spiritual needs because my earning patterns failed me—again! Of course, I didn’t realize that at the time.

So what about you? Do you use any of your negative traits to define who you are? If so, you’re lying to yourself about your true identity. Instead, realize that your negative traits and behaviors are only symptoms of a deeper spiritual problem and have absolutely nothing to do with who you really are. We’ll discuss this issue in more detail in Grace Lesson 5. For now, just know that your earning pattern—whatever form it takes—is merely your misguided attempt to earn contentment.

The Receiving Pattern

So, if the Earning Pattern ultimately fails us, but our three spiritual needs must be met, how can we live a contented life? Is there any hope? At the start of this book, I described how the sparrows on my balcony receive—not earn—food from me. Likewise, we must receive—not earn—the love we need from the proper source if we are to become a happy, well-rounded people. The Receiving Pattern is so simple, yet difficult for most people to grasp. That’s because since early childhood we are taught to earn good things; therefore, earning comes naturally, but receiving does not. So we must learn how to receive.

The Receiving Pattern may be compared to the gift of grace. According to most theologians, grace means being in a state of unearned or undeserved favor with God, wholly unmerited, nevertheless freely bestowed on us as a gift. Many people may be uncomfortable with receiving instead of earning. We’ll talk about that in more detail later. For now, let’s examine why the faulty earning pattern has such a tight grip on us when it comes to getting our three spiritual needs fulfilled.