Blog: Thinking Beyond the Physical
Thinking Beyond the Physical
People often think about humanity’s issues like poverty with surface level thinking. A person may look at poverty and think, “We just need to give everyone food and shelter for free, and educate them, that’ll take care of it.” Such a view, however, is unaware of the more essential underlying causes behind why people get to a point of poverty. Whether it’s due to the selfish choices of the poverty stricken person or of the people in their social network, or the lack of help from those who can, the root cause of poverty ultimately points to a character problem, a deficiency in the human heart.
Some may argue that the most essential needs for humans are food, water, and shelter. If this is true, why are so many Americans so miserable while having these needs met? Why do so many people, having them, commit suicide if the immediate physical needs of living are the most important aspects of life? This suggests a change in this thinking, an elevating of the value and priority of mental health, since unhappiness is driving such people to self-harm and destruction.
So what do we turn to for happiness? It was just established that the immediate physical needs of living aren’t sufficient. “It’s the wants of life, the pleasures that equal happiness.” someone may argue. The pleasures of life are never enough though. Whether it’s pornography, sex, drugs, alcohol, food, possessions, money, video games, property, or vacations, they all give a temporary high for the moment but leave us needing more and sometimes hurt.
What fulfills then? What gives life purpose? What’s left to fix the need and deficiency of the human heart? The answer is love. The most essential need of humanity is actually love. There are so many different perceptions of it though, so we can’t know true love unless we are enlightened to it; in a state of ignorance we have to be given what is beyond us. Through Jesus, the light of the world, and the Bible, God made true love known to us.
1 Corinthians 13:4-5 gives the true definition of love: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered.” In 1 John 4:16 we are told that “God is love.”. Therefore, God is patient, he is kind. He does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. He does not dishonor others, is selfless and is not easily angered. These attributes describe God’s character and, therefore, who he is; because love is who he is, it is also what he always does.
Since God is love and love is humanity’s most essential need, then humanity’s most essential need is God. Only a personal relationship with God through Jesus can truly fulfill and fix the deficiency of the human heart. 1 John 4:7-12 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”