Is God All We Need?                                            

I am a bit uneasy when we sing songs that affirm that God is all we need. It seems to be saying on the surface that God himself is our only support and commitment in whom we have total faith, which seems pious and devoted to God. But it seems to ignore we have needs that are met through God's ways and not through him alone in praise, worship or trust and commitment. Let's explore how God has set up the support we all need which may not be from him directly as the songs seem to assume and imply.

When God made man and placed him in the Garden of Eden, man's relationship to God was free and unspoiled and we assume they talked to each other freely. Yet God said that it was not good for the man to be alone by himself; and so he made a woman to be his counterpart to fill a need he had created in man. It wasn't enough for God to be God with a perfect relationship with man. Man needed a person next to him who was more like himself.

It also was not enough for the couple to have each other. They needed to have the joy of creativity God had created in them. Thus God enabled them to have children. So he fulfilled the nature of his own creativity by that ennoblement of sex and procreation. .

He also placed them in the Garden. They needed an environment. He set it up and then they were to care for it themselves.  Ever since then man has been caring and perfecting his environment so that today we have cities, houses, and many beautiful things. People shape their setting at more than necessity because of their need for perfection in their environment, more as God had created for them.

So more than man being sufficient in relating to God, he also needed a human element for completion of his needs, and the ability to reproduce. Then further, the drive to create the best world he could to live in. Man was not satisfied and still isn't content to just have a relationship with God, even though restored in Jesus. Christians as well are never satisfied with just having God, as if he met all their needs and interests, as some of their songs may imply or idealize. God wanted more for man then simply being man’s only support, to be satisfied with only a relationship with him. So he created him with many ways related to his fellow humans and environment. We need a lot! That is how God made us. Is that why we try to come back and sing that all we really need is God?  Kind of an over-correction. Perhaps it would be more correct to sing that God provides a way for all our needs, and be ever grateful for that.