But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ…and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

—Ephesians 2:4-10

I got a big surprise in late July of 2020. There were only a couple of weeks left before the new school year would start when I found out I’d be teaching my school’s psychology and sociology classes in addition to my normal English classes. Before then I’d had one psychology class in college, but it hadn’t gone well, and I’d retained none of it. 

I spent the year teaching myself the material a couple of days in advance and hoping I didn’t sound quite as unsure as I felt, but it ended up being an amazing experience. One of the things I learned during this class was about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Abraham Maslow created a hierarchy to explain the universal needs of humans. 

At the bottom were the basic physical needs—food, water, shelter—and the need to be and feel safe. At the top were social and emotional needs. When we think about God meeting our needs, we often think about how God provides for our physical needs, but our Heavenly Father doesn’t just care about what our bodies need. He wants to provide and care for all the needs we have and in this passage, we see Him do just that.

Love and Belonging Needs—The very first need we as humans will try to meet when we are sure that we are safe and our physical needs are secure is the need to feel so loved that we feel a sense of belonging with that person or group. This is our need for unconditional love that won’t throw us out no matter how we mess up. 

Verses 4-7 are full of expressions of this kind of love. In verses 4-5, it directly says that even though we’d messed up, He came after us because of “His great love with which He loved us.” In verse 6, He tells us where we belong, and spoiler alert—that place is right beside Christ Jesus. 

As amazing as verses 4-6 are, I think verse 7 is a whole other level of love and goodness because it explains why God did all He did in verses 4-6. Why did He come after us even though we’d rejected Him? Why did Christ suffer to save us? Not because God was just feeling magnanimous or because He wanted us to think more highly of Him, but so that “He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” In other words, He showed us all that love and kindness so He could keep on showing us love and kindness. It was an utterly unselfish and generous act.

Esteem Needs—This category refers to our need to be esteemed and respected by those around us. Being loved and having a place to belong is nice, but none of us want to be seen as the person who belongs but isn’t particularly important or capable or trustworthy.

In verse 10, Paul refers to us as God’s workmanship. The Greek word used there is the same word from which we get the word poetry. As a writer, I can tell you that writing in any form, but especially writing poetry is an incredibly personal act of creation. The fact that an almighty, eternal God is even mildly interested in approaching me with the intimacy, artistry, and care of a poet is a miracle, but when we were still a newly formed clump of cells in our mothers this is the level of care and esteem God approached us with. 

Self-Actualization Needs—This is a fancy way of saying that all humans have a deep need to work to be the best version of themselves. It’s the highest level of need, so we don’t even try to meet this need unless the other needs have been taken care of, but the end of verse 10 shows us that God has already been at work providing for this need as well.

After Paul says we are God’s workmanship, he says that we were created for good works and that God has already done the prep work for those good works. He’s charted the course and provided for everything we’ll need, paving the way for us to encourage the good in us. These good works will likely be a challenge that helps shape us so that we look more and more like our Heavenly Father, and there’s no higher standard we could work toward. 

I so deeply love discovering God’s goodness. There’s no end to the beauty that can be found in layer upon layer of His goodness and grace. There’s no part of us He doesn’t see and no need too small for His attention. I pray that we’ll all turn to God this week with our needs, confident and trusting that He hears, He sees, and He will provide.