Longing for Life

Monday, December 8, 2025

Today’s Reading: John 11:1-44

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs places physiological needs as the most foundational of human needs. He posits that we cannot think about higher-level needs, such as love and esteem, until we have what we need to simply stay alive — including oxygen, water, food, shelter, and sleep. The most base part of our mammalian brain (the stem) functions solely for survival. That’s why our nervous system has an automatic “fight or flight” response and why we can’t will ourselves to hold our breath until we die. There is nothing our physical bodies are more hardwired to pursue than life itself. 

God is not so transcendent that He is unconcerned with these needs. We see that the most clearly in the way Jesus cared for people while He was on earth. His purpose was the salvation of our souls, and He spent His ministry years teaching His followers how to live, but neither of those clouded His view of the physical needs around Him. He gave the crowds food. He healed physical ailments. He spoke life back into dead bodies. 

Jesus reminded His followers that God sees the needs of His children and provides for them (Matt 6:25-26, 32). God also knows that we need more. Life is not just survival. We were made for more than that. Our spirits are longing for life to the full, not just existence. 

When I had wisdom teeth extraction surgery, I was given an anticholinergic medication to decrease saliva production in my mouth. The surgery took a little longer than expected, and when I woke up after, I was already in the car on the way home. I had never been so thirsty. “Thirsty” doesn’t even describe it adequately. I was in a full-blown panic. I begged my dad to pull over and get me a drink — immediately. Each second without one made me panic more. The experience gave me new appreciation for Psalm 42:1-2 (NIV):

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. 

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

I had to admit I’d never felt that desperation for God. I had never thirsted for Him the way the Psalmist did. Does God really expect us to have a longing for Him like the hunger of an empty stomach or the thirst of a parched tongue? 

I think it’s a perfect way to communicate our absolute need for Him. He offers us abundant life beyond survival because we were made for Him. We do indeed need Him the way we need food and water. Jesus says of Himself:

"...but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14 NIV)

"I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst" (John 6:35 NIV)

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (John 7:37-38 NIV)

Jesus is the source of life itself. “All things were created through Him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians 4:16b-17 NIV) He is life, but there is yet more. He is eternal life. By His resurrection, He defeated death and the grave. 

“I am the resurrection and life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26 NIV)

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 NIV)

“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:4 NIV)

In Jesus, we have a God who cares for our immediate needs, a God who gives us life abundantly, and a God who offers everlasting life with Him. He is our life.