We Need Jesus by Micheal Woods, ED

It’s strange how often we think we know what we need. We map it out. We feel it strongly. We move toward it with confidence. Yet, if we’re honest, there have been plenty of times when things we thought would satisfy us didn’t. Times when we chased something, even worked hard to make it happen, only to find that it didn’t bring what we expected. Sometimes we even ask God to come along afterward and bless what we’ve already decided.

But God has a way of gently reminding us that He sees more clearly than we do.

The older I get, the more I’m aware that I don’t know as much as I think I know, even the things I feel certain about. I see now that I only understand in part. (We know in part… 1 Cor. 13:9) There is always more beneath the surface. More that God is revealing. More that He is forming in me. Instead of that being unsettling, it has become an invitation for me to trust HIM. To trust that what He knows is greater than what I think I know. To trust that His timing and direction are always right.

He is not limited in the same way I am. God tells us in Isaiah 55:8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” This keeps me coming back again and again to that same place: I need Him. Not occasionally. Not just when things are hard. But steadily, consistently, in every part of my life.

In Psalm 63:1, David describes this kind of longing. He speaks of thirst, but not the kind that is easily satisfied, the kind that comes from being in a dry and weary place. It’s a picture of someone who knows that without God, something essential is missing.

I find myself drawn to that kind of desire. Not out of desperation alone, but out of a recognition that even in moments of strength, there is more of God to know. Even in seasons of peace, there is more of Him to encounter.

But that longing isn’t meant to stop with us. It has a purpose. To know Him more is to reflect Him more. I need Him! To draw closer to Him is to become more aware of how He wants to move through us. Because something has already been placed within us.

In both Ephesians 2 and Romans 5, we are reminded that we’ve been made alive, that we are no longer defined by who we were, but by who we are in Him. We’ve been given a position, a standing that doesn’t come from our efforts, but from His work. When that begins to settle into your heart, it changes how you walk.

You begin to move forward differently, not because you have everything figured out, but because you know the One who does. You don’t have to control every outcome. You don’t have to understand every step. There is a quiet confidence that grows, not in yourself, but in Him.

It’s the kind of confidence you see in a child who knows they belong. There’s no hesitation, no second-guessing. They step into the room as if they have every right to be there, because they do. That’s what it means to live from your place in Him. Not striving to earn it, not working to prove it, but simply living out of what is already true. When you begin to live that way, something shifts. You stop measuring your life by performance. You stop carrying the weight of trying to get everything right. Instead, you begin to rest in what has already been done, and from that place, you begin to live, to love, to serve with a different kind of freedom (Gal 2:20).

So, the desire for “more” isn’t about accumulation, it’s about alignment. It’s about stepping more fully into what God has already made available, and that brings me back again to where this all began. I need Jesus. Not as a one-time realization, but as a daily awareness. In the quiet moments and the busy ones. In the things I understand and the things I don’t. In the places where I feel strong and the places where I don’t.

Maybe that’s where this meets you. Maybe you’re in a season where things feel steady, or maybe you’re in a place that feels dry and uncertain. Either way, the invitation is the same. Stay close. Let that awareness grow, not as pressure, but as peace. Because the more you recognize your need for Him, the more you begin to see how present He already is… and how much He has already given. Somewhere along the way, that need becomes not a burden, but a gift.

Friend, we need Him more than we know. Let’s settle into that and know that in His hands is the safest place we can be. – Micheal