Crossing the bridge of Self-Worth
I couldn’t sleep last night.
I watched a documentary about the Incas, and something stayed with me long after I turned it off. I couldn’t get out of my mind, the fourteen-year-old girl, chosen because she was the most beautiful, and the most innocent. She was offered to their sun god as a human sacrifice. It was heartbreaking to watch. But somewhere in the middle of not being able to sleep, a thought started forming that I couldn’t shake.
They weren’t wrong to sacrifice. Something deep in the human race knows we aren’t perfect. We know there is a gap between whoever created this place and created us, and we know that gap costs something. So we offer. We fast. We give up our time. We serve. We try to produce something innocent and pure enough to bridge it.
The Incas tried too. They chose the most beautiful, the most innocent child they could find. They kept her pure. They believed if they could just offer something unblemished enough, the gap would close.
But sin was already inside that child when she was born. They couldn’t produce what was actually needed. None of us can. And most of us don’t even realize that’s what we’ve been trying to do all along.
That’s where I was in the middle of the night. Sitting with the weight of a people who understood the need, tried with everything they had, and still couldn’t get there.
And then the next morning I opened Romans 1, and a single word caught my eye.
Through.
There was something more here. I could feel it.
That word, through, kept knocking.
If everything moves through something, then nobody is truly self-sufficient. Not the sacrifice. Not the offering. Not even the life we build day to day.
And that’s when someone’s voice came into my head. You’ve probably heard it too. Maybe you’ve even said it.
Christians just need a crutch.
I used to let that land as an insult. But this time I stopped and actually looked at it. A crutch. Something you lean on when you can’t bear full weight on your own. Something that gets you through until you heal.
And I thought, well, yes. Sometimes. But wait.
Do the people saying this actually stand without crutches? I started making a mental list. The person who googles every answer they don’t know. The employee who follows a boss to get where they want to go. The person who outsources their laundry, their lawn, their groceries, their answers. We use machines, hire people, follow systems, and trust experts. None of us, not one, is truly self-sufficient.
We all lean on something.
So the question was never really a crutch or no crutch. That was never the honest question.
The real question is, what are you leaning on? And what does it actually do for you?
Here’s what I’ve been turning over. Everyone leans. Everyone offers. Everyone is reaching toward something bigger than themselves whether they admit it or not.
The Incas leaned on ritual. They offered what they could produce and hoped it would be enough. It wasn’t, not because they didn’t try hard enough, but because no human effort can manufacture what only God can provide. Their through was missing. The sacrifice had nowhere to go.
And the person who says they don’t need a crutch? They’re leaning too. On their own intelligence, their own strength, their own carefully built systems. Functional crutches. They work, up to a point. Google answers your question but doesn’t know what you actually need. Your boss guides you toward his goals, not your healing. The machine does the work but can’t touch what’s broken underneath.
Functional crutches hold you up temporarily. They don’t transform what’s underneath while they hold you.
That’s the difference.
When I lean on Scripture it isn’t because it gives me answers like Google does. It’s because I believe the One who wrote it knows me, loves me, and is working something in me through every word. When I follow the Holy Spirit it isn’t like following a boss. It’s a GPS that knows where I’m going, and what I need to become, on the way there. When I create something such as my collages, my prayers, my parenting, my writing, and bring these to God; I am learning to do all these things through Him. These cannot just be in my own effort. Because when I allow God to work through me I walk with the One who created me, and suddenly what I do carries weight I couldn’t manufacture on my own. I have purpose.
The Incas were reaching for exactly that. A sacrifice that could actually carry something across the gap. They understood the need better than most modern people who have never once considered that the gap exists.
They just didn’t have the way, the through. Through Christ all things are possible.
So here I am. A seventy year old woman who couldn’t sleep because of a documentary about an Inca girl who died two thousand years who also tried to bridge a gap she couldn’t name.
And I realize I’ve spent most of my life doing the same thing in different ways. I called it perfectionism. Trying to produce something good enough. Trying to hold my own weight. Trying to get across the bridge of self-worth.
And then in my pride, I looked at how far I’d come, how much I’d learned, how much I’d grown; and I thought to myself, I don’t need those crutches anymore. I’ve moved past that. I know better now.
But I can’t really give them up. Because I still need Jesus. I still need the Bible. I still need the Holy Spirit as my GPS.
What I discovered is that my crutches didn’t disappear, they transformed. The Bible I used to grip out of fear, became the Bible I sit with, out of love. The Jesus I clung to in crisis, became the Jesus I walk with on ordinary Tuesday mornings. The Holy Spirit I begged for help in emergencies, became the GPS I consult before I even pull out of the driveway.
Same crutches. Completely different relationship.
And somewhere along the way I stopped being embarrassed about that and started understanding what it actually means.
It isn’t a weakness. It’s knowing what kind of help actually reaches the deeper thing.
The person who says Christians need a crutch is right. We do. But so do they. The only question that has ever mattered is whether their crutch can carry them through the gap. Or whether it just holds them up until they hit the wall.
My crutch is relational. Personal. Living. Not a system or a method or a machine. Someone who knows my name, knows the gap, and already crossed it on my behalf.
The Incas were looking for that. In their own broken way, with everything they had, they were looking for exactly that.
I hope someday everyone who is still searching, finds the “only way through.”
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
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