Bare Necessities by Gloria Kuykendall

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything. Rather He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else . . . ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being’ ” (Acts 17:24-25, 28a NIV).

In the 1966 Disney animated film Jungle Book is a delightful jazzy song, “The Bare Necessities.” Sung by the bear Baloo (voiced by Southern singer and actor Phil Harris), it is a whimsical number in which Baloo teaches the man-cub Mowgli how nature provides just what every creature needs to survive and enjoy life. As he bounces through the jungle and floats down a stream, the bear joyfully tells the boy, “Look for the bare necessities, / The simple bare necessities, / Forget about your worries and your strife! / I mean the bare necessities, / That’s why a bear can rest at ease / With just the bare necessities of life!” One can see Baloo’s philosophy in action as fruit falls out of trees right into his paws—no effort required. 

Of course, that is a cartoon character’s philosophy, a departure from the reality of life we face every day in which we need a car, gas, and money that comes from a budget and a store that offers that fruit for sale, if it is in season. No perky, carefree bouncing through the landscape, forgetting about our “worries and . . . strife!” for us. We can’t just chill out like Baloo and Mowgli.

Or can we?

Our busy modern lives often seduce us into thinking that our survival depends entirely on us scrounging for what we “need,” forgetting our dependence on the Lord for the very air we breathe. We need to pause and ponder that “the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth.” He is the One who “gives everyone life and breath and everything else” (Acts 17:24-25). What a marvel it is to contemplate how every time we breathe in and out, we are demonstrating His loving care for our very existence!

It all began in the Garden of Eden where man was created: “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7). It is obvious that we must breathe in order to live, but this is more than just simple respiration. Not only does God give man oxygen to ignite life, but He also breathes a soul into a formerly lifeless body, a soul which is the essence of what makes humans be in God’s own image.

Animals breathe air, too, but they lack the awareness of life that people made in God’s image have. God intends for us to “seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:27). We are designed to pursue the meaning for our existence, but because of sin, the search ends up terribly: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). We wrongly find meaning in temporary and finite matter instead of the eternal and infinite God.

However—Praise the Lord!—He does not create our bodies, breathe life into us, and provide souls, just to watch us flounder. Before creation itself, God has a plan to rescue us from sin and death: “For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight” (Eph. 1:4) by sending His Son to die on the cross and rise from the dead. It is only through Jesus Christ that we can be “holy and blameless,” our souls restored to what they were meant to be. Through Christ, “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us” (Eph. 1:7-8a). The “bare necessities” God provides for us are far beyond what any bear in the Disney jungle could imagine.

Take a few moments to lose yourself in the wonder of the breath of life, a marvelous gift: a soul that draws us to seek Him. Through faith in Christ we have the bare necessities of eternal life, for “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28a). You can “forget about your worries and your strife” as you breathe in His grace and breathe out your praise!

I’ll be praying for you.