UN_MET NEEDS & THEIR CONSEQUENCES

UN-MET NEEDS & THEIR CONSEQUENCES

By Liberty Savard

An unmet need is like a ravenous wild animal. You can try to avoid it, kill it, or appease it. We often try to avoid, kill or appease our unmet needs. God just wants to meet them. We don’t think too often about making a way for Him to get in close enough to do it.

Instead we think if we just had the right man or woman in our lives, or the right job, education, hair, weight, house, car or clothes, then things would be better.

When we’ve clung so desperately to the fantasy of attaining one of these carrots that the world has dangled in front of us for so long, it is very scary to admit that not one of them can meet our needs. It can seem even scarier to tear down the protective strongholds, throw out all those wrong ideas, and stand stripped and emotionally naked before God, admitting,

“I guess there isn’t anything this world has that will ever meet my needs. Now what do I do?”

We have all tried so many things – buying off, burying, denying our unmet needs. The problem is that our unmet needs, like wild tigers, reject any efforts to pacify them but momentarily, and they come driving right back after us again and again. We can try to kill them, and some have succeeded by their own suicides. Or we can try to appease them with offerings of more relationships, sex, alcohol, food, drugs etc. These coping behaviors only “quiet” the needs temporarily. They lay down for a while and are not as prone to push for satisfaction, until the “fix” wears off. Then they begin to prowl again.

We have all cried out over and over for God to fix the pain, fix the neediness, fix our mate, or send someone who will make us feel good about ourselves. God is more than willing to help if you will give Him any sort of access to the unmet need. But your soul has built its strongholds to keep Him out. That is why He has said, “Tear down your strongholds.”

UN-MET NEEDS PRODUCE WRONG DESIRES

Wrong desires generally come from an inner drive to satisfy an unmet need that has been in your life for a long time. Behavior driven by an unmet need is often perceived as a weakness of character or a personal failing. For example someone who has a deep unmet need for love will constantly get into wrong relationships. Someone who has a deep unmet need for security may be a compulsive shopper and hoarder. Someone who has a deep unmet need for acceptance may fish for compliments all the time. Someone who has a deep unmet need to feel necessary may constantly compete for positions of authority he cannot effectively handle.

Such “acting out” of unmet needs is rarely considered socially acceptable, particularly among those who are worried about their unmet needs. There are usually consequences from our attempts to meet our own neediness, such as being rejected, ridiculed, ostracized, and criticized. This causes any needy person to ultimately see his or her unmet needs as personal weaknesses rather than needs the Lord wants to meet. Strongholds, blame shifting, & denial are erected around the needs in the hope of hiding them from others. “Out of sight” perhaps but the needs still exist. And they are still exerting internal pressure, which still manifests itself in wrong desires, wrong behaviors, and wrong reactions.

Wrong desires that come out of these unmet needs have the potential to escalate into powerfully destructive drives to achieve their fulfillment. Wrong desires being about the destruction of marriages and wrong desires bring about wrong marriages. Oh how often I pray with lonely needy people, pleading with them to turn to God for healing before they search for someone they hope will meet their unmet needs and destroy their present spouse in the process.

The intention is for a particular person to fill an empty place in their heart instead of God to meet their unmet needs, to heal an unhealed hurt or to resolve unresolved issues

This places unrealistic expectations on them and no man or woman can ever fulfil such expectations only God can do that He is the only one that can fill them with grace, bathe them in love, meet their needs, heal their hurts and resolve any questions or issues. They have layers of self-protection and self-defence to cover areas of vulnerability, which in turn manifests into neediness, loneliness and pain.