There's a popular idea in psychology called the Hierarchy of Needs. The concept was created by this guy named Abraham Maslow, who essentially ranked human needs in a pyramid with things like food, shelter and air at the bottom and self-actualization at the top. The theory goes that humans begin to fill their needs from the bottom up. Only once they have attained food and shelter can they look for something like a loving relationship. Only once all other needs have been satisfied will they go on a spiritual search for meaning.
I don't know how anyone, having studied a range of human experience, can subscribe to this nonsense.
Case study #1: America. Let's just go ahead and say that country's got it pretty good when it comes to basic needs. Less than 2 percent of the population lives in absolute poverty (less than $1/day). Americans, even ones who have been hit by the recession, are rich people--they've got cars, houses or apartments, and money to spend on $5 cups of coffee. Their children go to school. They wear shoes. They usually do not die because they get diarrhea and can't afford the medicine to stop it.
There's poverty and suffering in America, sure, but I'm just saying that this poverty is relative to the rest of the American population. On the whole, if you're an American, you're probably freakishly rich.
So according to the Hierarchy, with these basic needs covered, Americans are freed up to pursue higher needs: love, friends, family, spirituality, God. But that's not what Americans are doing with their wealth. One recent study indicates that, when asked to identify their priorities in life, the priorities of family and spirituality are both on the decline in America, while priorities of health, wealth, and leisure are climbing.
It strikes me that wealth is an addictive thing: Get a little bit and you'll want a little more. Instead of feeling satisfied with our basic needs and moving on to pursue relationships and then faith, suddenly we put way more things into that "basic" category: the right kind of cell phone, for instance, or a house with four bedrooms, not three. We feel unsatisfied with what we have, materially, and so our focus stays on the material.
Case study #2: Refugee population in Uganda No one can miss the absolute poverty here, and I won't spend a whole lot of time talking about that.
What I will say is that, according to the Hierarchy, these are the people who ought to be consumed, every minute of every day, trying to meet their basic needs: Food, clothing, shelter. But while these people spend insane hours out in the fields trying to meet those needs, I don't think I've ever met anyone who prayed harder. God is like oxygen for them: If He doesn't provide, they will die--and they know it. He's indispensable. He is their biggest need, because they realize that without Him, they can't have any of their other needs met.
On top of that, the people I met put a higher value on community than any American I know. (And the Americans I know value community more than most do.) I had one person tell me they'd rather build relationships with foreigners than have their money. (Read: The community tier is a higher priority than the "basic needs" tier.) And if you want to know what you can do for them, they will tell you: Get to know us. Spend time with us. Show you care.
One thing I've noticed is that humans aren't actually very good at realizing when their basic needs are met. How many times have I heard an American (including, embarrassingly, myself) say: "I wish I were rich"? The more time we spend focusing on our material needs, the more we seem to have, don't we?
No wonder it's hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom.
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