Needs

Perhaps no word is used more poorly and improperly than the word need. As James reminds us, it quickly surfaces in our relationships. When my heart is ruled by the desire for a certain thing, it cannot help be effecting my relationship to you. Need inevitably produces expectation (“You should”). If I am convinced I need something and you have said that you love me, it seems right to expect that you will help me get it. The dynamic of (improper) need-driven expectation is the source of untold conflict in relationships.

Eventually I will come to accept the logic of my neediness. I will find it painful to live without the thing I desire. I
will think it is appropriate to do everything in my power to get it. It becomes my right. This powerful expectation will not only shape my relationships with people, but with God as well. This is an “I love you and I have a wonderful plan for your life” view of relationships. My plan for our relationship is that it would meet my needs.

- Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemers Hands, 87.