What you need

I hear over and over in your emails to me about how hearing about needs
in Africa puts a perspective on our own troubles and tribulations. I am
glad that we each take the time to examine ourselves and think about how
we are provided for, but I think it is a difficult and dangerous thing
to compare 'needs' or to try to rank them, one against another. As was
pointed out by a friend of mine, our ability to live out the
opportunities we have been given to the fullest is the measure of
happiness and fulfillment for many of us, and need is felt more in the
lack of what we know we could be than the lack of what we know we
can't. "To him to whom was was given, much will be expected."
I think Caedmon's Call put it well on their album "Share the Well":
I did not catch her name I did not catch her tears
It hit me like a train when her story hit my ears
Mother of 8 sons father off to war
Got no home address just bricks on a dirt floor
She said "Jesus is all I need"
Tiny plot of land corn stored up in piles
The years it doesn't rain just stay hungry for awhile
No fatted calf to kill she made a feast of qui and corn
Said who else knew my name before the day that I was born
She said "Jesus is all I need, Jesus is all I need"
She bragged about her boys how they're growing into men
How they learned to praise the Lord -- old-style, Ecuadorian
To buy the new guitar they had to sell the swine
Said my boys go to school on a foreign angel's dime
This world calls me poor I bore my babies on this floor
He always provides sure as the sun will rise
So I sing him songs of praise because I know he keeps me in his gaze
Rain fell from the sky, we raced back to the van
Tears in the eyes of this poor, forgetful man
Mother of 8 sons, she knows the peace of God
Lord, help me learn to lean on thy staff and thy rod
Jesus is all I need, Jesus is all I need.