The Secret Place of Worthiness

We often hear in our teaching that we are perfect, whole, and complete just as we are.

Even when we understand those words as describing the essence of our spirituality, many of us—especially in moments of doubt, pain, or worry—find "whole and complete" difficult to believe. It can seem far away, even elusive.

Instead, we become mesmerized by the trance of not enoughness and unworthiness.

Have you ever noticed how much of life is spent trying to become worthy?

Worthy of love. Worthy of success.

Worthy of belonging.

Worthy of God.

Even those who have walked a spiritual path for years can still hear that quiet inner voice whispering, "Not quite yet. A little more healing... a little more growth... then I’ll be enough."

Much of that message is woven into our culture and, for many of us, into our religious upbringing. How many of us grew up Catholic?

Before receiving Communion, we prayed:

"Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof but only say the word and my soul shall be healed."

For years I wondered: Where did that come from? Was worthiness really something we had to earn?

The answer takes us back to the Gospel of Matthew.

Jesus has entered Capernaum when a Roman centurion—a high-ranking officer, hardly an ally of the Jewish people—approaches him with an unusual request.

"Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented."

Jesus immediately replies, "I will come and heal him."

But the centurion, reluctant to have a Jew be seen in his house, answers,

"Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed."

He then explains that, as a man under authority himself, he understands the power of a spoken command. If Jesus truly possesses spiritual authority, a word alone is enough.

Jesus is astonished.

"Truly I tell you, I have not found such great faith, even in Israel. Even among my apostles".

Then he simply says,

"Go your way; as you have believed, so let it be done for you."

And the servant is healed.

I've always found it fascinating that Jesus never pauses to argue with the centurion.

He doesn't say, "No, no, you are worthy."

Instead, he marvels at the man's faith.

Why?

Because the centurion has shifted his attention away from himself and onto something greater. His confidence rests not in his own worthiness but in the creative power of the Word.

Over time, much of Christianity came to emphasize human unworthiness. Yet this story points in a different direction. Jesus responds not to the centurion's self-assessment but to his trust in Divine Presence.

Perhaps that's the invitation for us as well.

I wonder if many of us have mistaken the spiritual journey for a journey of becoming worthy.

What if it is actually a journey of remembering?

Worthiness is not something we achieve.

It is something we uncover.

The Psalmist writes:

"Whoever dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."

What is that secret place?

As a younger man, I imagined it was somewhere outside myself—a holy place I had to earn my way into.

Today, I wonder if it is much closer.

Feminist theologian Megan Watterson speaks of what she calls the heart's heart—the deepest place within us. A place beneath fear, beneath shame, beneath comparison, beneath every story we've ever told ourselves about not being enough.

The heart's heart is the place where the Divine has already said yes to our existence.

Perhaps that is the secret place. Not somewhere we go.

But somewhere we awaken.

Ernest Holmes taught that we are individualized expressions of the One Life. If that is true, then our worthiness cannot be earned any more than the ocean must earn its wetness or the sun its light.

Our worth is intrinsic because our very being arises from Spirit.

The conditioned self may still whisper,

"I'm not worthy."

But beneath that voice is another.

A quieter voice. A deeper voice.

The voice of the heart's heart.

The voice that has never doubted our belonging.

Perhaps that is why Jesus responds not to the centurion's unworthiness but to his faith.

Faith allows us to live from that deeper place. So maybe the question isn't,

"Am I worthy?"

Perhaps the better question is,

"Can I trust the Love that has always known my worth?"

Henri Nouwen once wrote that our greatest temptation is to believe we are what we do, what others say about us, or what we possess.

Instead, he reminds us:

"You are the Beloved."

Perhaps spiritual living is simply this:

Returning, again and again, to the secret place where nothing needs to be earned, nothing needs to be proven, and where we discover that we have always been held in the shadow of the Infinite Love that gave us life.