living with {vulnerability}
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
To love is to be vulnerable.”
// C.S. Lewis, "The Four Loves"
Vulnerability....
It's great, right? I love it when people open up, share, and are vulnerable enough with me to connect with them on a deeper level. It's one of my favorite things (Anyone else no good at small talk?)
But lately, there's been this deep conviction from the Holy Spirit that leaves me saying
"Oh, wait, You mean I also need to be vulnerable?"
Well, poop.
For whatever reason, vulnerability has been an extreme struggle my entire life. Maybe it's because growing up I didn't fit in very well. Maybe it's because I put my confidence in myself in the fact that I could do things. So I tried to do all the things I knew I would be at least semi-good at so I would be viewed as "talented". Pride most certainly has a lot to do with it as well. Fear of failure. Ya know, regular insecurity stuff.
Don't even get me started on when you become any type of leader somewhere, feeling like so many people rely on you. While your intentions are good, it creates this image that you're morally, spiritually, (and maybe even physically) impenetrable that you feel you must uphold.
For the record, it's not a fun cycle to live with. It most certainly doesn't produce love in your life.
--------------------------------------
But enough excuses.
There's one major, distinct way that vulnerability is displayed.
And that's love.
--------------------------------------
If you look up the antonym for "love" in the dictionary, you'll most likely find the word "hatred."
But 1 John 4:18 gives another insight into what the opposite of love is:
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear"
At the core, to love means to not allow fear to rule your thoughts, emotions, and actions. It's when we're afraid of being hurt that we don't truly love. Or we love with selfish motives, which is so emotionally unhealthy I don't even know where to begin.
As Josh Black reminded me today in Sunday's teaching: "It's self-protection to make sure no one can hurt you. To love means to be vulnerable, putting yourself in a position of sacrifice for others."
--------------------------------------
So what all is involved in this vulnerable, fearless, biblical love?
Galatians 5:22-23 says:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Love? check
Goodness? check
Faithfulness? ...yeah sure, check
Kindness? uh....cheeckk?...ish?
Patience? uh....not gonna check that one off.
Joy? well, let's check that one from yesterday.
The catch is, this isn't a list of individualized items (see the last blog post "not just an image").
It's all aspects of a single "fruit".
L O V E.
--------------------------------------
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (broken down from the AMP version here) describes this fruit called love.
Love endures long and is patient and kind
Love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy
Love is not boastful or vainglorious
Love does not display itself haughtily
It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride)
It is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly
Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way
It is not self-seeking
It is not touchy or fretful or resentful
It takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]
It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
Love bears up under anything and everything that comes
It is ever ready to believe the best of every person
Its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances
It endures everything [without weakening].
Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end].
--------------------------------------
Ah, this all sounds beautiful + grand, amiright? If only the world loved like this....
But people are...well...people. They're imperfect. They hurt us. They can cause us to go on wild emotional rollercoasters. Any deep relationship is wonderful and painful and easy and hard and joyous and heartbreaking, all at the same STINKIN' time.
Sure, you can live life without living vulnerably. You probably won't keel over and die. You'll never be hurt by another person and have to experience any of the difficult, somtimes gut-wrenching emotions that comes with that. You may even still have friends and loved ones surrounding you.
But you'll never experience true love.
--------------------------------------
Well, this sounds uncomfortable.
Hate to break it to you, but that's because it is.
But God doesn't call us to live comfortably. God calls us to live radically.
As followers of Jesus, I pray we would learn to be vulnerable. To practice it daily. To love powered solely by His vulnerable display of love on the cross for us.
And as a byproduct, maybe we'll stop living in fear and start experiencing a little piece of God's love.
Seems crazy, that we can both experience God's inexplicable love poured out onto us and be a direct conduit of that love so other people can experience it too.
Even better? Furthering God's glory and His kingdom here on earth. Because Jesus wasn't joking around when He said:
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another;
as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
// John 13:34-35 //
--------------------------------------
To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Comments
Post a Comment