What is our greatest Need?

Abraham Maslow - Human Needs

The American psychologist, Abraham Maslow tried to organise human needs from the most fundamental to the most important, and came up with the diagram below: 

The greatest human need, he suggested, is inner fulfilment, reaching our goals.

At one level, Maslow's pyramid makes sense and no doubt many people would agree with his highest goal, achieving personal fulfilment, success.

There is however, a problem with the top triangle, and it is this: everyone who has achieved "success", even spectacular success, says that it doesn't fill the human heart, it doesn't bring the expected satisfaction:

Jim Carey: “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.” 

Lady Gaga: "I was at the top of the mountain and I felt so empty. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't enjoy any of it... It’s lonely at the top. When you get there, you realize there's nothing there.”

Scottie Scheffler: "The first time I won the Masters, I cried like a baby... I thought that tournament was everything. Then I realized it's just a golf tournament... Winning doesn't satisfy you. It doesn't keep you full."

A New Pyramid

The problem with Maslow's hierarchy of human needs is that it misses out our  deepest needs, our spiritual needs. We are more than body and mind, we have eternal souls. 

According to the Bible, the deepest part of our being is our invisible soul, the real us which lasts forever.

Our souls were designed to know God, love him and find our ultimate satisfaction in him. 

We need to redraw Maslow's pyramid:

Only God can fill the God-shaped hole that we all find within ourselves. Without God we will, all our days, say and feel things like this:

Meaningless! Meaningless!, says the teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.

"All the things that are done under the sun... are meaningless, a chasing after the wind."

"The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing."  

God sent Jesus into the world to reconnect us to himself, so that our souls would be satisfied once more. He said:

"I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within them."

The key, the road, the solution to spiritual satisfaction is believing in Jesus.