What do you need? I suppose the answer to that query all depends upon the person on the other end of the question. Ask an orphan in Guntur, India. Ask a young mom with two toddlers. Ask a hospitalized diabetic. Ask the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. What do we need?

For the vast majority of Americans the answer would not be what the child in India needs, namely a little rice and something besides a dirt floor to sleep on. Still, every individual has definite needs in life, no matter the economic or ethnic background. The essential needs of food and shelter, the physical needs of safety and security, the emotional needs of being loved and accepted—all such needs are foundational and fundamental.

How does God take care of those needs? To disciples who were caught up in a mad rush toward the accumulation of things, Jesus pointed to flowers and birds. “Your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Our loving Savior is also our caring Creator! It is he who provides us with the wisdom and strength to earn our physical needs of food and shelter. It is he who allows us the contentment of a job well done as we utilize our God-given abilities. He also provides us with protection and security through his representatives of government and police. He even provides us with emotional needs of love and acceptance through family and friends.

Yet when these human representatives of God’s providence fail us—and they often will—our caring Savior God will never fail us. “His love endures forever.” Consider how great is the love of Jesus who died and rose for us! We now know that we are acceptable to God through Christ. Our soul is safe. We are content. We have God’s promise: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” The One who holds the stars in their place knows our names and our needs. He seeks our happiness forever, not just for a few short years now.

Look to Jesus, for he says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”