I Used to Believe I Wasn't Worthy to Speak to Jesus Myself

For a long time, I believed something I never questioned: that I wasn't good enough to talk to Jesus directly. Not that I preferred going through someone else. I mean, I genuinely believed I needed to. I thought I had to go through a preacher, someone I assumed had a stronger relationship with Him than I could ever have. That's what I was taught, and I took it as fact. I wasn't worthy enough to speak to Him myself until I was 'whole." What does that even mean?

What That Belief Actually Did

It's easy to say that like it's just a theological detail. It wasn't. It was a belief about my own worth, dressed up as humility. Every time I wanted to pray, there was a quiet voice underneath it asking, who are you to think He wants to hear from you? So I outsourced it. I let someone else carry the relationship I was told I couldn't have on my own.

I didn't see it as a burden at the time. I saw it as respect for God, for the process, for the people who'd "earned" that closeness. Looking back, it was something else entirely. It was a wall, and I'd built it myself out of borrowed bricks.

The Slow Crack

There wasn't one dramatic moment where this belief broke. No single sermon, no single verse that flipped a switch. It was slower than that, more like a question that kept resurfacing until I couldn't ignore it anymore. Where was the proof that access to God was rationed based on who was "worthy" enough? I went looking, and I couldn't find it. Not really. What I found instead was a pattern: people setting the terms of a relationship that was never theirs to gatekeep. The idea that I needed a middleman to be worthy of His attention didn't come from Him. It came from people. And somewhere along the way, I had mistaken their limits for His.

Unlearning It

Once I saw that clearly, I couldn't unsee it. If I actually believed the things I said that He was loving, present, and willing, then the idea that I had to earn my way to Him through someone else wasn't humility. It was a lie I'd been handed, and I'd never once thought to question it. What surprised me most wasn't a single fact or argument that changed my mind. It was simpler than that. I just ran out of good reasons to keep defending a version of myself that believed I wasn't enough on my own.

Where I Am Now

I don't say any of this to argue that preachers, pastors, or spiritual mentors don't matter. They can. Community and guidance are real gifts. But there's a difference between choosing to learn from someone and believing you're not allowed to approach God without them. One is community. The other is a cage, and I lived in that cage for years without realizing the door was never locked.

If you've ever felt like you had to earn your way to being heard by God, I'd ask you the same question I eventually asked myself: where did that belief actually come from? Because sometimes the thing standing between you and the relationship you want isn't Him at all. It's just a story someone else told you that you never got around to questioning.