Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - We Are Needy | The Writings | Psalm 116

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

Everyone has needs. Are you ignoring your neediness for the idol of self-reliance? Are you bringing your needs to the Lord? In today's episode, Patrick shares how Psalm 116 encourages us to recognize our neediness and bring it to the feet of the God who can provide. Prepare your heart this Advent with the 2024 TMBT Advent Calendar! Each day, receive a new prompt for Scripture, prayer, and reflection—designed to help you slow down and reflect on the Hope, Love, Peace, and Joy that Jesus offers. Sign up now to receive your free Advent calendar! Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 116

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. American culture isn't interested in needy people. I don't mean to say that we don't help those in need. We do. I meant to say that Americans don't aspire to become needy. And I don't mean needy in a material sense. I mean needy in any sense of the word. The ideal American is self-sufficient. He's able to provide for himself materially. He's mentally, mentally, stable and requires no additional support. He's a leader. He's someone who inspires others, helps others, but doesn't need help himself. In fact, I've met leaders who claim to never get sick,

or at least very rarely get sick, because to them, needing even medical help is being too needy. Pause and reflect on your own life. Is your deepest desire to rely on someone else? Is your deepest desire to be needy for someone else, to stay mentally fit, to stay strong? Is your longing to lean on someone else for your material needs? Do you want to be needy? I think most of our listeners, myself included, would answer those questions, no, not at all. And I think most of us would beat ourselves up if we answered those questions, yes. And all that begs a question. Is being self-reliant and self-sufficient, the key to a happy life? Here's a not-so fun fact. Last year, 19 CEOs of major corporations died. That's the most since 20.

10. One of those individuals was named Ivan Menezes. He was only a few weeks short of retiring when he died at the age of 63. He was hospitalized for stomach ulcers and then died shortly after. You see, there's a cost to becoming a self-sufficient, self-reliant, needless leader. It costs you the truth, because the truth is that everyone has needs. Everyone needs others. Everyone needs help. Everyone gets sick. Everyone has limits. When we deny those, fundamental realities. The cost is high. This is why there are higher rates of depression and suicide amongst entrepreneurs than amongst the normal population. This is why addiction and secret lives are prevalent amongst the leadership class. Because we can all put a needless face on, but deep down

we are needy. And deep down, those needs need to be met, either by drugs, sex, and alcohol, or else we perish. In Psalm 116, the psalmist shows us a better way. He trains us to walk in the path of neediness by unveiling the story of his own needs and the ways in which God has met those needs. So let's pick up in verse one. I love the Lord, for he heard my voice, for he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. The cords of death entangled me. The anguish of the grave overcame me. I was overcome by distress and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord. Lord save me. The Lord is gracious and righteous. Our God is full of compassion. The Lord protects the unwary. When I was brought low, he saved me.

Return to your rest, my soul. For the Lord has been good to you. For you, Lord, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living. When is the last time you called on God to preserve your body from death, to relieve you from distress, to be present with you in sorrow? When's the last time you cried out to him like the psalmist does? Lord save me, to keep your feet from stumbling, to keep tears from your eyes. These are all things that the psalmist experienced. And rather than hiding his needs from God and saying, I'm self-sufficient, I'm self-reliant, I've got this figured out, he ran with his needs to the Lord, and the Lord answered him. He drew near to him. He preserved him. Of course, that means that the opposite

is also possible. Not that God will ignore your needs, but that he could have just ignored his need for God. It is possible that you ignore your needs for God in your life. But it's also possible if you've been doing that to bring your needs before him. And if you don't bring your needs to God, don't you know what the results will be? The results will be that you will stumble, you will weep, you will, wander alone. You will wander in your distress alone. You will wander in your sorrow alone. You will end up as the CEO of your own life, struggling to make it on your own. But most importantly, you will end up distant from God himself. You see, needless people have no need for God. And those who have no need for God need not walk in his presence. The cost of self-sufficiency

goes far deeper than your mental and physical health. It goes far deeper than loneliness and isolation. It goes far deeper than a dishonest life where you weren't being honest about your needs. The cost of self-sufficiency is ultimately spiritual because self-sufficient people don't need salvation. They can do it for themselves. If you're not needy for basic things, how can you be needy for greater things? If you don't trust God to provide small things in your life, how can you trust God to provide great things in your life? Jesus encountered plenty of self-sufficient leaders in his own day. They were called the Pharisees. And we read this story in Mark 2, verses 15 to 17. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him

and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said to them, it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Self-sufficient people are self-righteous people. They're people who think they can do it alone. Whether that's be moral on their own or manage their lives on their own, they think that they can win God's favor or the world's favor on their own. They're healthy people who never get sick, and they have no need for a doctor. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, well, I can be needy for salvation, but not needy for material provision.

I disagree. Providing a meal in a house is far easier than providing internal salvation. Providing a job is far easier than providing a refurbished heart. If you can't trust God for the lesser things, how can you trust God for the greater things? Psalm 116 wants to train us to walk in the way of neediness, to become the sort of person who comes to God on good days and bad days and recognizes that on both days we need him desperately for everything. When we pray for our daily bread, just as Jesus taught us, when we pray for our daily bread, we think not only of our food for that day, but for our whole spiritual being. And when we do this, we join with the psalmist in verse 13. I will lift up the cup of my salvation and call upon the

name of the Lord. So lift up your cup of salvation. Call on the name of Jesus in radical neediness. Let him fill your cup until it overflows and enjoy the gift of his presence, a gift given only to the sick and only to the needy.