Are Your Five Core Needs Being Met?

For you and me to experience wholeness, five desires of our hearts must be met:

Security – who can I trust?
Identity – who am I?
Belonging – who wants me?
Purpose – why am I alive?
Competence – what do I do well?

Each of those are listed in their correct order, by the way. If you feel safe and secure, you’ll feel empowered to discover your identity – your deepest passions and strengths. Out of those, you’ll discover your purpose and develop competence.

Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

Those verses teach us that the fullest expression of those five core needs are discovered in Christ. But what happens when we seek solutions for those needs outside of Him? According to Dr. Kathy Koch, we’ll turn to “counterfeit solutions,” unhealthy and ungodly choices that inevitably leave us feeling incomplete, broken, and disappointed.

How can we avoid counterfeits and grab hold of authentic solutions that satisfy our five core needs?

Dr. Kathy Koch is our guest on our Focus on the Family Broadcast “Are Your Five Core Needs Being Met?” She explains how to find your security, identity, belonging, purpose, and competence through a relationship with God and with good, godly people.

Hear the program on your local radio station, online, on Apple Podcasts, via Google Podcasts, or take us with you on our free phone app.

You can find more information in Dr. Koch’s book Five to Thrive: How to Determine if Your Core Needs Are Being Met (and What to Do When They’re Not). I’d like to offer you a copy for a gift of any amount.

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Dr. Kathy Koch is the founder and president of Celebrate Kids. She’s also an author, speaker, educational psychologist, and former teacher. Her passion is to help people experience God’s best in their lives as they think and learn and interact with each other.