Early in my career, I was told by a media pundit that success in business was about finding a need and meeting that need. The predicate of this thinking was that generally whatever people wanted they needed. In other words, people could self-define their needs and excellent service was simply meeting those needs.
From a Christian worldview, service is not necessarily giving people what they want. True serve means to give people what God wants them to have, which may be different from what they want. Providing people with goods and services that support their fallen nature is not serving them, and people or organizations who support mankind’s sinful nature will not be blessed. To cater to people's greed, vanity, and lusts may momentarily produce happiness for the purchaser and profit for the seller but, in the end, both will be judged.
This raises the question, is it okay to buy luxury items such a Hermes handbag or a Rolls-Royce motor car? Are luxury items real needs or simply perceived needs?
There is a difference between perceived needs and real needs. The former is often driven by fleshly desires and the latter is driven by God’s purpose. Servants of God are charged to help people discern and meet their real needs. Therefore, one of the keys in any economic transaction is to discern the real need, which is the process of discerning God’s will.
Sometimes the process of distinguishing between perceived and real needs is easy. For example, given that man was created with a need for appropriate food to fulfill the Creation Mandate of Genesis 1, we know that mankind has a real need for quality food to empower him for his mission on earth.
But distinguishing between perceived and real needs is not always easy. For example, a Bible teacher shared a story about a middle manager at IBM who bought the most expensive automobile in the world at that time—a Rolls-Royce motor car. To be clear, this was a very unusual choice for a man at his pay grade. Was he meeting a perceived need or a real need? When questioned, he explained that it could appear that such a purchase was arrogant and presumptuous, in other words, that he was serving his fleshly desires and therefore meeting a perceived need. He explained, however, that he had done a careful analysis of the cost of the Rolls-Royce motor car over the time he expected to own it. Because of the vehicle’s quality and the man’s commitment to steward it well, he calculated that over the vehicle’s lifetime the Rolls-Royce was the most cost-effective means of transportation available. He made the purchase not based on presumption and pride but based on sound stewardship. He adroitly discerned his real need.
What a profound thought process—thinking big picture long-term and considering his real need of transportation and how to most efficiently meet that need. Whether or not this man was a Christian, I don’t know. But clearly, a Christian could learn from his thought process and add to it the understanding that a Christian’s need for transportation is to enable him to fulfill God’s purpose for his life on earth.
Sadly, many times, if not most times, Christians do not think at this level. They rationalize decisions, which are frequently driven by perceived needs not real needs. Perceived needs are driven by fleshly desires such as image, pleasure, comfort, convenience, lust, and greed. Seeking to pander to a self-serving image is clearly always wrong. Seeking to fulfill lust and greed are always wrong. But pleasure, comfort, and convenience are not necessarily wrong unless they are pursued to fulfill our will not God’s will.
Pleasure, comfort, and convenience must always be subordinated to God’s will because God uses pain and suffering to transform us. Seeing the good purpose of God in life’s difficulties is a mark of maturity as a Christian. The Epistle of James (chapter 1) states that God uses trials and tribulations to build us up to better serve his purposes. This is a difficult reality but essential truth.
Christians must guard their motives in all decisions, particularly when decisions involve pleasure, comfort, and convenience. In today’s pedestrian paradigm of Christianity, it is easy to assume an entitlement mentality. The spoken, and unspoken, message of Christianity seems to be that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. The challenge with this is not its veracity but its assumed meaning. This message is commonly assumed to mean that God will solve all your problems and heal all your infirmities. This is a distorted interpretation of who God is and how he works. Consider James’ comment on this point:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2–4 ESV)
God is working all things together for good as God defines good. And God has no problem using suffering and pain to accomplish his purpose. Therefore, the challenge is to see the good hand of God at work amid the trials and tribulations of life. Our real needs relate to our ability to properly endure the seasons of trials and tribulations so that God accomplishes his work in us and consequently we can obediently fulfill his purpose.
Just as there will be seasons of trials and tribulations, there also will be seasons of pleasure, comfort, and convenience. These are wonderful, enjoyable times but a true believer must also learn to view times of trials and tribulations as opportunities to rejoice, not because of the pain but because of the transformation that God works in us through pain and suffering.
When we seek to self-define our needs, we are at risk of serving our fallen nature, that is, serving our will. In the story above, the middle manager was not seeking to feed his fallen nature; rather, he was seeking to be a wise steward of his resources by discerning the most cost-effective automobile transportation. This is an example of sound Godly thinking.
God defines our real needs. When these needs are met, we are empowered to find and fulfill his purpose for our lives. This means we will play our role of obeying the Creation Mandate in the context of the metanarrative. This is real success.
The proper question in any situation is always, what is God’s will? The issue of distinguishing between perceived and real needs is a major issue. Learning to discern our real needs requires maturity and wisdom. And one of the best ways to discern God’s will on a questionable decision is to humbly seek wisdom from Scripture and the counsel of godly advisers.
May we all have grace to wisely distinguish between our perceived needs driven by fleshly desires and our real needs that facilitate obedience to and alignment with God. And may we humbly submit to meeting our real needs and therefore steward our resources accordingly.
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