Literary Letters: Vulnerable

Vulnerable:
(a) Exposed to the possibility of being harmed emotionally or physically
(b) In need of support, care or protection. Risk of abuse or neglect.
(c) Easy to hurt
Vulnerability:
The ability to be vulnerable
Vulnerable-ness:
The condition of being laid open to something (exposure, liability, openness)

It’s a strength to be weak in such things. Courageously vulnerable! Allowing all our little walls down one by one, but God… But God demonstrates vulnerability greater then anybody you would have ever known. A passionate pursuit, He doesn’t hold back. In love and in-love, everything He plunges forth, with nothing of himself reserved. Captivated and enthralled by everything that we are, He reaches out. He sacrifices everything. His your untold story of romance, of unquestionable grace.
He sacrifices everything, long before we say “yes.” Not simply because he needed to, but because He loved to, because He wanted us.
God of angel armies, magnificent, wonder, awesome, captivating, creator of all things; He is love…. and He wanted us! And every day He reaches out:
“Won’t you talk with me?”
“Won’t you reach out to me?”
“Won’t you pursue my heart?”
“Won’t you come and sit with me?”
“Come adventure with me?”
“Come to me, I love you…”

In grace every day He reaches out! In His mercy, He waits. Never failing, never holding out, and never giving up. Unswerving, faithful, patient God.
There is a vastness and depth to His character left open, yet untouched by us. God so vulnerable opens all He is before us and most of the time we just simply walk by. Doesn’t this show the magnitude of his love, how soft His heart is toward us, how passionate He is, how much he longs for connection, how much he longs for intimacy and how completely utterly selfless our God is. We’re more then just mere mortals, we’re so loved. So greatly, passionately loved!

So if we serve a God that is so fearlessly vulnerable, fearlessly authentic. What greater model can we follow?
For some of us, if not most of us our past can show us we were undervalued, judged or condemned by our authenticity. That we should have been ashamed, dismayed and embarrassed by our emotions, embarrassed by the rawness of our realness. But God shows us that he loves our authenticity, the depths of our being that makes us everything we are. He welcomes us to be vulnerable; He embraces everything that we are.
The depths of who we are crying out to Him, he loves that, He embraces that and he tells us we don’t have to be afraid. You see God already knows us, He already knows everything….
“Before I utter a word, before it reaches my tongue, He knows it…” Mind, body and soul, He knows us. “You search me and you know me completely”

God is safe. In a world where our voice has been ignored, He hears us. In moments where we felt our voice didn’t matter, He was attentive, listening to our every word. When our tears were so many, where we cried for days, weeks and months hidden and alone, He was close. When our pain, heart-felt confessions were mocked, ridiculed, laughed at, silenced or ignored, He wept. He held us, dear, He sung over us songs of delight and comfort and none of our tears were wasted… every tear placed in a jar… and He said: “It mattered, you matter.”
The beauty of our weakness before God is that He will comfort and hold us.

See vulnerability is such strength and yet the love of God transcends all wonders, He takes compassion long before we ever even run and reach out to Him. We don’t have to be afraid, because we are passionately loved, so dearly treasured and so beautifully, gently and completely cared for. With God there is no judgment or ridicule; one by one we can let down our walls. We don’t have to fear abuse or harm because boldly we can approach His throne.

“Trust in Him at all times, you people: Pour out your hearts to Him, for God is a refuge for us, His safest the place to be.” (Psalm 46:8)

They say a wound heals when it’s exposed to fresh air and to sunlight. A wound needs to breathe. In order for God to breathe healing into our lives, we must first be vulnerable. It’s then He is able to bring restoration and wholeness.