Diagnosis determines cure. How you understand a problem governs what you do about it. But what if the problem is hard to pin down—a lingering dissatisfaction, a feeling of unrest, or a sense of being “stuck” in a behavior pattern? What if, in the pith of our soul, we can’t shake the sense that something is wrong with us, but there’s no easy fix? The suspicion of wrongness is with us when we wake, when we parent, when we work, when we rest. It’s quiet at times but never fully absent. Something is off. As Christians, we profess to believe in the life-altering truth of the gospel. But our lives don’t seem to be altering; they’re caught on something, like a garment on a thorn bush. At times, we feel tempted to ask, “What’s wrong with me?” That’s not the best question.
Diagnosis: “Felt Needs”?
One popular approach from psychology culture is to question whether our “felt needs” are being met. Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) taught that we have a “hierarchy of needs.” Summarizing Maslow’s approach, William Ward writes that the motivations for our behavior arise from those needs “as a hierarchy or pyramid. Its broad base, on which all else rests, consists of the physiological needs; the next higher layer, of the safety needs (for security, stability, freedom from fear, and so on); still higher, of the psychological needs, which are largely of a social nature (the needs for belonging, love, affiliation, and acceptance; the needs for esteem, approval, and recognition); and finally, at the pinnacle, of the ‘self-actualization needs’ (the need to fulfill oneself, ‘to become everything that one is capable of becoming’” (Ward, Schools of Psychology, 581–582). Get these needs fulfilled, and you’ll feel at peace: satisfied, rested, unencumbered. With this approach, the question isn’t, “What’s wrong with me?” Instead, it’s, “What ‘natural’ needs or desires are not being met?”
There’s a deeper problem with this approach. From Maslow’s perspective, the boundary between “needs” and “desires” dissolves. We all have physical needs for food, water, and clothing. That much is clear. But are belonging or acceptance or approval needs in the same sense? What about sexual intimacy or feeling fulfilled? Those sound much more like desires than needs.
When the boundary between needs and desires breaks down, it is far easier to expect special treatment from other people (for them to meet our “needs”), and then we feel miffed when our desires aren’t satisfied.
But what’s the big deal? So what if Maslow dissolves the boundary line between needs and desires? Don’t overlook the danger. When the boundary between needs and desires breaks down, it is far easier to expect special treatment from other people (for them to meet our “needs”), and then we feel miffed when our desires aren’t satisfied. This turns people into instruments. Others exist, in part, to satisfy or fulfill us. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” we start asking, “What’s wrong with them?” Do you see the shift?
There’s a spiritual development problem as well: this approach makes us static. We stay the same, with our self-centered “needs” and desires, while expecting others to meet us where we are. But maybe the result of that expectation is precisely what leads to us feeling dissatisfied, restless, and stuck. If we’re not changing and growing in the ways we long for, the problem must be others, or the unfairness of life, or a “broken system.” The problem couldn’t be inside us, could it?
Problematic Desires
Scripture says exactly that. The problem we face isn’t that our felt needs aren’t being met. It’s that our hearts are twisted and self-aggrandizing. Evil and God-rejecting madness swirl inside the soul. “The hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead” (Eccl. 9:3). The problem is deeper than felt needs not being met; it’s a holy God not being loved. We fail to love God “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5). Our desires are bent and destructive because we have made ourselves—rather than God—the center of the universe. Life has become centrally about us and peripherally about him.
The problem we face isn’t that our felt needs aren’t being met. It’s that our hearts are twisted and self-aggrandizing.
But God is never content to dwell on the periphery. He is the one from whom, through whom, and to whom are all things (Rom. 11:36). He is the sun; we are the planets. Whenever we try to have others orbit around us, bad things will follow—the least of which is our feeling dissatisfied, restless, or stuck.
Diagnosis: Saved from Desires
This brings out David Powlison’s critique of needs theory and the goodness of the gospel. Is Jesus the one who comes to “meet our needs”? Like Maslow’s needs theory, that allegedly “good news” doesn’t go nearly deep enough. Powlison said,
According to the logic of a need system, Christ is fundamentally someone who meets the need. He’s someone who gives you what you long for. Is that the gospel? Or is the gospel the man who died because of what you long for so that he might set you free, so that the flesh with its lusts might be crucified, and you would live for a different set of desires—the desires that God actually hardwired us to live for by creation? But in the fall, all the desires got twisted. Isn’t that the gospel, that we have been saved from our desires? (Dissecting the Heart, 63)
The gospel saves us from the unending labyrinth of selfish desires by giving us a new heart (Ezek. 11:19; 36:26) with one holy desire governing all others: to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). God at the center of our universe—that is peace, rest, and fulfillment of all we are and all we ever could be. God saves us from our desires, and then he shows us who we were meant to be from the beginning: God-chasers.
What Do You Desire?
At times, we’re all tempted to ask, “What’s wrong with me?” We may also be tempted to ask, “What needs do I have that aren’t being met?” But the biblical question is, “What do I truly desire?” Our desires are revelatory. They show us what we worship and treasure. And Christ has come to save us from the desires that put us at the center of the universe.