I want you to think of what being in a relationship with the one you love the most feels like. Your soulmate, your spouse; or maybe who you dream this person to be if you haven’t met them yet. Maybe you are already in this relationship and get to experience the most amazing feelings of love, devotion and vulnerability. Maybe you haven’t met this person yet and just know in the depths of your heart exactly what you want and need from your union with them.

How exciting, how poetic; this is what love stories are all about!

Now, as you grow in love, you’d want to make that connection even deeper, right? Learn what makes them melt, shower them with authentic, heartfelt love and do your best to be the best you that you could for them! Afterall, a relationship is so special in part because of the journey to fall more in love everyday.

So as you are learning how to love better, and what makes them the happiest, will you do that by speaking with them, or asking other people? Would you invite someone else into your relationship, your deepest emotions and your most vulnerable moments to give you answers about the other person? Would you give someone else the keys that could unlock the doors to their most intimate details?

Of course not! Right?!

Why put someone in the middle of your relationship? That would change the entire dynamic, open up our hearts to doubt and could even lead to feelings of insignificance and not being worthy of giving or recieving the love we so desperately want and need.

So, why do we do exactly that with our spiritual life?

For many years, I looked for spiritual fulfillment and the answers to so many questions in my heart outside of Jesus. I started getting deep into the theology of man, self empowerment and the “magic of Self”. (Yes, with a capital S) I got lost in the ideation that through ritual, prayers to ‘angels’ and saints, ‘connecting’ with gurus, shamans and/or healers could bring me to ultimate divinity.

I was craving a connection to the supernatural; there was such an emptiness in my heart and I looked almost everywhere to find it.

I looked everywhere except from the one true God, from whom I was running from for 20 years. His call and mercy was ever present; I just sidestepped, avoided it and gave no credence to it.

Only through His absolute forgiveness and incredible grace can I even write this post and share this intimate part of my journey. In this journey, I no longer look to build the ‘magic of Self’, because I’ve learned that serving God instead of Self is the ultimate freedom. The world teaches us that we must feel valuable, and we can feed our egos and “Self” in the eyes of man when we sacrifice for the sake of self worth. The problem that arises is that when we are sacrificing to build Self, or our egos, we will never be satisfied because the gap between Self and God continuously grows the more we attempt to do it on our own.

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

When we submit to God, and His perfect will for our lives, we no longer have to worry about losing ourself, proving our worth to other people, and filling a gap created by emotion and a sensational experience. We can be completely empty of the need to build ourselves up and be truly happy, because in His ultimate power He gives us everything we need to be fulfilled.

My value is no longer rooted in what I can bring to the table- it’s found in who brought me to the table.

And in this journey, I’ve learned that I don’t need a middleman to get to the Father. Just as inviting someone into my marriage would ultimately be a distraction from the power of my relationship with Gia, asking someone else to take me to God and His will undermines His ultimate authority.

Jesus Himself taught us that “No one gets to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6b)

The most powerful scripture for me though is 1 Timothy 2:5, which says, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

We don’t need gurus and other people to get to God; we don’t need middlemen.

We need Jesus.

The journey to empowerment through Christ is a difficult one, but I can tell you now from my experience that it is the only path to self worth that will never leave us empty. And in His perfect timing, grace and forgiveness, all you need to do is ask for His intercession in your life.

You could be a thousand steps away from Jesus, but all it takes is ONE step to find Him.

“Jesus, I need You.”