If you know what your needs are, have prayed about them, and still feel they’re going unmet, do not worry. In this message, Dr. Stanley reassures listeners that God knows their needs and delights in meeting them. For more messages from Charles Stanley, including this week’s broadcast, go to www.intouch.org/watch
[Music]
timeless truths
a collection of classic sermons from dr
charles stanley
today’s selection recorded in 1998
why our needs remain unmet
how often have you carried your needs to
the lord in prayer and
asked him to meet some specific need in
your life and yet
he didn’t meet it how did you respond
when that need
remained unmet did you question the fact
that when he said he’d meet all of our
needs that he didn’t really mean all of
them
did you doubt the fact that god would
just answer your prayer any longer
or did you get angry with god and just
say well lord you know just forget it
you’re not going to meet my need then
i’ll do something else
or did you look within yourself to ask
yourself the question
god why isn’t it that mine why is it
that my need
is not being met you see the truth is
god delights in meeting our need he
desires to meet
all of our needs well if he does then
why doesn’t he
why is it that god seemingly does not
meet all of our needs
so that’s what i want to talk about in
this message and that is why our needs
remain unmet you’ll recall we’ve been
talking about the passage of scripture
in philippians chapter 4 when he said
my god shall supply all your needs
according to riches and glory
in christ jesus now with that in mind
with all these promises the very life of
jesus christ himself
somebody says well but i have needs and
my needs are not being met
why isn’t he meeting my particular needs
so that’s what i want to talk about in
this passage and so i want us to think
about something for a moment and that is
we think in terms of the fact that he
desires to meet our needs and we ask
ourselves
the question why doesn’t he well let’s
look at some very evident reasons he
doesn’t then let’s look at
the big major reason that i want to talk
about certainly one of the reasons he
doesn’t meet our needs is because
he warns us of this in james chapter 2
when he says you have not because you
asked not there are many people who have
needs who never think to call upon god
their excuses well
god’s too busy why is he interested in
my needs because he says
in the psalmist that he will perfect the
very thing that concerns us he’ll meet
all of our needs
according his riches in glory in christ
jesus therefore
we should ask him we should come to him
and say god this is the need of my life
and i’m trusting you therefore he says
one of the reasons our needs aren’t met
we don’t ask him
in the next verse in that fourth chapter
the third verse he says a second reason
your needs are not met is because you
ask
he says with the wrong motive you ask
for the selfish motive you’re not asking
uh that uh in a way that would be
pleasing and honorable to god but a very
selfish motive so he says therefore
not going to meet it for that reason the
third reason he says in james chapter 1
he says because if you and i come to him
doubting
we come to him doubting he says let not
that man a woman who doubts
who wavers in their faith expect to
receive anything from god so therefore
one of the reasons
he doesn’t meet our needs is because we
doubt him we don’t ask or we
ask a miss one of the primary reasons he
doesn’t
meet our needs because we have sin in
our life he says
that he listen if we regard iniquity in
our heart he’ll not hear us
which is his way of saying if i hold on
to it deliberately willfully choose to
sin
the 66th psalm 18th verse deliberately
willfully choose to sin against him
he says he will not hear us and then of
course i think one other way
and the primary thing that i want to
deal with here is the fact that we want
to do it our way
and so if i want to do it my way and i
want to get my needs met my way
then god isn’t going to interfere
oftentimes not i’m holding sailways
he’s not going to interfere with if i
think i know how to do it best
god’s going to let me make a mess of it
until i come to conclusion god
i need you to meet this need in my life
now that
that’s the way oftentimes we choose to
get our needs met and
they’re the reasons that it doesn’t
happen and so we want to blame god
and sometimes we get angry with god lord
you’re not answering my prayer you said
you’d answer my prayer but some
how you don’t now with that in mind
let’s remember this that when you and i
grew up
we experienced all kinds of things we
came many people came from families
where they felt rejected well they felt
abandoned they felt hurt
they felt pain they did not feel a sense
of worthiness because they were told
you’ll never amount to anything they
didn’t feel very competent because they
were told you can’t do that
why do you why do you think you can do
this they certainly didn’t feel they
they belonged because they said you know
you are an accident
and so when you think about all the pain
and the hurt and the ignoring that goes
on of children
and the kind of rebellion and the kind
of
disobedience that parents get into and
neglect their children and overlook
their spiritual needs and
overlook oftentimes their physical and
material needs children grow up
in very difficult circumstances
oftentimes verbally
physically or sexually abused by their
parents
what i want you to see is the
helplessness the hopelessness
the sense of pain excruciating deep
abiding pain
that goes on in a child’s heart or even
a teenager’s heart
where they have been hurt deeply deeply
hurt and marred and scarred
and yet who’s there to give them an
answer explain
most of the time nobody so what happens
they have to learn to adapt learn to
cope and so they build
these structures this is the only way
you see what they’re saying is how do i
survive
how do you survive and every kid grows
up figuring out how to survive
but most of the time 99 of the time our
methods of survival are not the right
way
now we’ve talked about uh how people
usually respond
and we’ve talked about uh how we look at
needs in our life and
why god often times does not answer them
but the one that i want us to deal with
primarily here
is i want us to talk about this whole
idea
of trying to meet them our way and what
we do
we go about building these structures
building these devices emotionally in
our life in order to help us to survive
what i’d like to do is i’d like to
mention several of these
to say right up front this is not the
way that you
deal with needs in your life those
emotional needs that are not being met
this is not the way to do it but this is
the way often times we do it
and so what i’d like to do is to mention
several of these and give a brief
explanation
of them and then here’s what i want to
ask you to do
now if you if you’re not willing to do
this
then you know what we’re wasting our
time but i believe you are because i
think you’ve already registered in your
heart something
that somewhere along the way we’ve hit
on something here and i know we have
what you’ve got to decide right now is
am i going to be absolutely honest with
myself and with god
or am i going to keep trying to fool
myself because i don’t
i don’t want the pain and sometime
to discover what the real need is
and to be willing to deal with it is
very painful it’s extremely painful so
i’m just giving you a warning up front
you can either sit here in the night and
you can sit here and act like it’s not
happening
god knows it’s happening god knows the
kind of structures that all of us have
built
and i’m going to use myself as the first
example because i want you to know
if you’re not willing to be honest with
yourself
you’re going to miss it and you know
what i don’t believe you can afford to
miss this
if you want a real sense of contentment
and ever experience real joy in your
life
and have wonderful loving relationships
you cannot afford to miss what i’m about
to say
so if you’re listening say amen all
right
what is one of the primary ways we deal
with hurt pain suffering excruciating
things that have been done to us
abandonment being ignored one of the
first things we do
we deny it that’s the first structure
and probably the most the prominent
structure we build
we’ll just deny it now if i can cram it
stuff it and jam it
uh to the point that i can deny that it
ever happened then
i don’t have to face it then i’m not
going to reach out to say to someone
else i need you to help me denial
is my way of hiding denial
is my protection denial is a structure
i build and my emotional being that says
somewhere along the way if i put this
aside long enough
that i’m going to be able to just
outgrow this
and get over this you see denial is a
form of control
if i can deny it then i can control
my feelings i think and so i will go
i’ll go about in life
denying that i even have i’ll just deny
the fact that my parents hurt me i’ll
deny the fact
that uh i’ve been embarrassed and shamed
back yonder for some reason
i’ll just you know but you see now
here’s what i want you to remember in
your conscious mind you do not say
i will deny this it is listen remember
what we’re doing
we are building structures for survival
we we’re we’re building our defense and
a child doesn’t sit down and say i will
deny this ever happen no
what happens is that in a very
subconscious because our pain is such
we cram it jam it stuff it and before
long we deny that even happen now here’s
the here’s the tragedy
you can deny something like that so long
and become so absolute totally deceived
about your own denial
that you will in genuine honesty you
think
in your heart say it never happened to
me no that that that never happened to
me that wasn’t no i don’t know why you
got that that never happened
you can deny it so long that you
absolutely become fully convinced that
it never happened
now i’ll give you a personal example in
my own life
you’ve heard me say before that my
father died when i was nine months of
age
well if you had said to me and i can
remember exactly how i felt when
when people would say well stand up
where where’s your father my father died
when i was about nine months of age and
i never knew him period closed
conversation it’s over that’s the way i
thought
well god set me up for something
because i’ve been preaching a long time
and one day one of our secretaries
walked in one sunday
brought her daughter in and wanted me to
sin i’d seen her lots of times before
brought her in and she said
she’s nine months of age this week
well she reached out to me i didn’t have
to reach out she when she saw me she
reached out to me
i took her in my arms and held him
talked to him sort of
followed up a little bit and tell how
sweet she was and how wonderful which
she really was and she’s grown up to be
a
grown girl today she’s in college and um
so she hugged me a little bit and i
hugged her and gave her back to her mom
when she walked out all of a sudden it
hit me i thought
she knew me nine months of age
i knew my father
well that was on sunday so i sort of
ignored that walked away
shove it down on a saturday afternoon i
was in the prayer room by myself
when we were downtown and i remember
something that happened to me just in a
brief moment
just like that i saw
my grandfather and my father sitting on
this log
out in the woods talking to each other
and they were just laughing
and all of a sudden it was just a brief
momentary vision
and the only reason i knew it was my
father because i’ve seen the picture and
they were sitting out in the woods on
this
and just laughing and talking all of a
sudden i wanted to get in on that
conversation
real bad and it was gone
and i remember what i felt i felt very
angry with god
i just anger just boiled up inside of me
god
what have you done to me why is it that
why why did you take my father away
now up until this time and i’m in my 40s
now up in this time here’s my answer
it was the will of god god took him end
of conversation end of theology end of
it all
and so what have i been doing jamming it
cramming it stuffing it
did i do it deliberately no did i do it
consciously no
but you see i was in a state of denial
well i was denying that it had any
effect on me at all why
well it couldn’t have had any effect on
me because god did it as if god took him
and i was nine months of age and i never
knew my father
god did it and this is how another way
you can reason god doesn’t make any
mistakes
god didn’t do anything in error god’s in
absolute control therefore if he did it
that was right therefore ignore it and
move on in life
the only problem with that is i knew him
at nine months of age i didn’t know much
but i must have known him
if i could know this little girl that i
didn’t live with and
and she just every once in a while i
would see her and at nine months of age
she reaches out to me with this big
smile
i wonder how many times do i reach out
to my father the big smile
well it was that conversation with that
little girl
and that incident in the prayer room
that god used to bring me to realization
i had to deal with something in my life
because up until this time i had felt
god
being very distant now i could pray i
could trust him for big things little
things
all the things are going on in my life i
could rejoice about
and yet there was always this distance
between god and myself
well he brought me to another another
experience later on uh probably a year
or so later
that i began to realize why i had felt
all this distance
because i denied
unconsciously but it was real here’s
what i want you to see
listen you can be conscious or
unconscious of it if you do it the
effects are the same
it’s not a matter whether you choose to
or not the effects and the consequences
are the same
i could never link up with god in my
emotions
theologically i knew he loved me i mean
no question in my mind about that but if
you ask me well do you do you
emotionally feel god’s love the answer
would have had to be no
i don’t feel it now i know he does but i
didn’t feel it why
because i denied the very fact about my
father
where do you get your first implant
where do you get your first idea about
god
from your earthly father well why was
why was god distant from me
because because my father was gone
at the at the age of nine months he’d
never been there
how was i supposed to believe that god
was this infinite loving
present father i could tell you
theologically and biblically that he was
but in my emotions he wasn’t
now i say all of that to say this we can
deny things we don’t even realize that
we’ve denied them
and we think well they don’t have any
effect upon us yes they do and i want to
say this over and over and over again
you don’t get healed by osmosis
you don’t get healed simply because time
goes by
these needs do not begin to be met
simply because
you have ignored them and denied them
and time goes by
no they don’t they are there and until
they’re dealt with the real
basic need will not be met and the basic
need in my life
at that moment was to feel an intimate
personal relationship
with the lord jesus christ in my
emotions not just in my theological
thinking
god knew that i needed a sense of
acceptance by him
that he unconditionally loved me none of
which were that none of that was a part
of my life
until he brought me through these three
experiences
i did not deliberately deny it it’s just
the way i grew up
and i’m saying we build structures in
our life that we’re not even aware of
second structure we build is avoidance
i’m talking about just a v o i d a n c e
avoidance we avoid things now for
example
let’s say that you uh have were deeply
in love with someone and i mean you just
love them with all your heart and they
just walked away and said you know what
i don’t love you and i don’t want to
marry you or whatever it might be
and so i mean you were deeply deeply
hurt
deeply scarred in your emotions i mean
you were ripped asunder you you had just
given yourself that person
as much as you could before marriage and
and you were living a godly life
and therefore and they just walked away
well what would be the natural normal
structure well
what would the little child what
structure would the little child build
when the parents walk away
little child build this structure i have
to be real careful
who i love from now on because if i love
somebody else
and if i trust someone else what they’re
going to do to me they’re going to do
the same thing my mom and my daddy did
to me
and they’re they gonna leave me and
they’re gonna hurt me and i’m not gonna
suffer that again so i’m billing myself
a wall
big enough thick enough high enough
they’re not going to get in
now does a child think through that no
but here’s what a child does
in experience have to experience
relationship to affiliation relationship
what do they do
they just put it up but that’s one of
the ways that people
deal with those issues then of course
there’s conformity for example
uh here’s a child grows up and uh that
child’s got a mind of his own
i mean he’s a good thinker she’s a good
thinker and they’re creative and they
and they have initiative and so
they they want to create they want to be
creative and have an initial
sit down and shut up
no you can’t why do you think you can do
that so what does a child do a child
wills they lay down their creativity
they lay down their initiative they lay
down their strengths
and they just do what they just make me
like putty
and i conform to whatever you want well
they grow up and
here’s what they rise that’s the way
they eliminate being rejected
that’s the way they eliminate their
parents scolding them that’s the way
they eliminate being a
being abandoned up for periods of time
well that’s the way they eliminate
having their appearance
parents mistreat them and it was just
conformed just
just just like putty just fit me into
the mold
so what happens okay grows up among his
teenage friends what does he do he
conforms they’re going out getting all
kind of trouble he conforms that’s a
witness
you know what he learned that with his
parents or she learned that with her
parents
he gets into business and so he still
has this creative mind
he has all kinds of ideas that would
help the business and help the people
around them
uh he could motivate them but you know
what
he knows better than to kick over the
beehive
he knows better than to stir up anything
he knows better than to
excel he knows better than to really
show his creativity because if he does
uh he’ll be criticized that you’re
trying to get ahead you you’re just
showing off
somebody he just fits into and
compromises none of those
are the ways you deal with getting needs
met every single one of those
is and there are lots and lots of others
all of those
are structures emotional structures we
build
and we start building them very early in
life in order to survive
in order to be able to face life and
listen
if we don’t deal with the structures
we’re going to end up with our whole
life
never having really and truly been
fulfilled
and listen carefully the more painful
the more painful those experiences are
early in childhood
the thicker and the higher those
structures will be and the more
difficult it will be to get through them
now the last question simply is how do i
deal how do we tear these things down
how do we how do we deal with these
structures first of all we’re not
blaming anybody
but the fact that they started early in
life but we are responsible as adults
and we are responsible when we
learn uh what’s going on and why it’s
happening we are responsible for dealing
with them
first thing we do is this we say lord
here’s what i think my need is help me
to discern the difference between what
the symptom is and the real
basic need lord is my real need that i
feel so rejected
it’s my real need that i i i need to
feel i need to feel
accepted and i need to feel a sense of
worth lord is my real need
a sense of security that’s based on the
right thing god help me to be able to
discern between
the real need and some symptom now
father here’s what you said
you said that you would supply all of my
needs
according to your riches in glory in
christ jesus and therefore
and understanding what this is i believe
you’re going to meet my need here
now lord show me the structure show me
the structures that i’ve used before
in dealing with my needs have i been one
of those persons who just
acquiesced to everything around me have
i used lying
have i been have i been denying what
this real need is
lord have i been compromising have i
been angry have i been projecting on
someone else
lord what what what have i been doing
trying to deal these emotional needs i’m
here to tell you god will show you what
it is
he will show you the structures in your
life that you’ve used before lord
i choose beginning today to tear them
down lay them down lord
i’m not i’m not lying and i’m not
acquiescing anymore i’m not i’m not
going to argue i’m not going to project
anymore
i’m not denying this anymore god i know
this is in my life i know this is a need
and lord i’m i want you to i’m asking
you to meet that need i’m i’m
tearing down these walls i’m not
surviving and i’m not building any more
defense mechanisms in my life
god i want you to meet my need your way
and i’m trusting you lord what would you
have me to do
god will answer that prayer every single
time because you know what you’re doing
you’re dealing with the real you you’re
coming to grip
with the problem that god is aware of
you’re coming to grip with the solution
that he knows
you coming that you’re coming to grips
with a person with yourself that he
knows so well
and so you’re saying i’m laying that
down that’s not my way of dealing with
my needs and longer lord i’m trusting
you
god may say to you i want you to go see
so-and-so and talk to him or to her
i want you to seek godly counsel to help
lead you through this
god may lead you to someone else or he
may show you
those structures so clearly that you’ll
be absolutely amazed you will want to
tear them down you will want to destroy
them
because you’re going to want to build
godly intimate relationships in your
life
he will answer that prayer you do not
have to live
any longer behind these walls of denial
and acquiescence and lying and
compromise and arguments and
and codependency and all of these and
all of these material
things that you thought were somehow
going to meet your need
you can lay that down and you know what
will happen
you listen listen when you tear down the
walls you’re going to feel emotionally
naked
because you’ve been so covered for so
long you’ve hidden so long
you’re going to feel slightly you’re
going to think well now what now now
what are people are going to think are
they going to think
that i’m just trying to be nice no you
see remember
you’re dealing with something that’s
been inside of this mind for yours and
inside of your emotions
often times for years and years and
years and years
and laying that down and tearing it and
tearing it tearing it away
it’s like ripping off something that’s
covered you for a long time
god almighty this loving unconditionally
loving father
well listen he will be there for you
in those moments when you say to him
lord not living that way no more god i
don’t want to live now let me tell you
something
it may be real painful it may be
extremely painful
for you to say you know what i’m not
going to acquiesce anymore i’m just
going to stand up and say you know what
i don’t agree with that
i want to be kind god i want to be
loving show me how to be kind
when i’m having conflict show me how to
be kind lord
show me that the person is not rejecting
me they may be rejecting my behavior
they may reject something i’ve done they
may they may they may disagree with my
attitude they may reject my attitude not
rejecting me god
help me to be able to deal with the pain
the first few times
i have to stand up for myself and know
lord
that you’re going to heal me through
this it can be painful
it can be embarrassing but you know what
you’ve got to decide do i want to be a
whole person
do i want to be a whole person or do i
want to go through
the rest of my life emotionally crippled
because i didn’t have the courage to
stand up and face
lord hear the walls you say well let’s
there’s not not even an issue about why
they got built that’s not the issue
god knows that we come along early in
life and we all build them
that’s not the issue the issue is here’s
what it is and god i want to lay it down
i want to tear it down take it away god
and give me the courage to to hurt
to feel the pain whatever’s necessary
but god above everything it’s
heal me of my hurts so i can be the
godly man and the godly woman
the godly young person lord you want me
to be and my friend
almighty loving god will answer that
prayer
we’ll meet your needs this is why i’ve
said this over
and over and over again
building an intimate relationship with
almighty god
is such a wonderful foundation for
building a relationship with someone
else
open transparent all the rest
and so i want to encourage you
not to miss next sunday because the
entire message is going to be
building an intimate relationship with
our heavenly father
it’s the bottom line building a
relationship with the heavenly father is
the bottom line
and i want to encourage you to begin to
ask the lord to show you
how to do that
you